Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Nariko stared long and hard at the ring. Finally she stood up and began licking her arm with her long tongue like a cat.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I do not promise that none of your people will get hurt along the way.”

  “I guess I’ll have to take my chances.”

  Nariko watched Mai greedily as she ran over to the control podium and ran a manual override. The system had been re-built with its own backup power supply to prevent the barrier from coming down like it had before and now Mai had to sabotage that system. It all seemed so wasteful.

  “Once I get the barrier down, we’ll need to get you into an environmental suit. The whole ship has been flooded with a neurotoxin.”

  Nariko turned around and looked at Mai as if she were stupid.

  Mai began the Rite of Exequies and pried open the housing.

  “I’ll be fine,” Nariko said, taking in a deep breath.

  Inside her cell, Nariko rose up to her full height and spread out her wings. The cell filled with swirling multicolored energies and when they subsided, she was surrounded by broken terminals, overturned chairs, smashed holo-tanks and bits of wall and floor as if a room had simply been scooped out from somewhere and laid out around her. Nariko’s katana lay on top of one of the processing banks.

  “What is that?” Mai asked aloud, watching Nariko pick up a man-pack communicator.

  “This is the CIC room from Jerricus Spaceport on Tridia,” Nariko explained, raising her taloned hands into the air. Inside her cell, the newly appeared room came apart, bit-by-bit, as if it were nothing more than a sand sculpture being blown away by the wind.

  “It is my world,” Nariko said passionately. “My own little realm.”

  The dust gathered together into two spheres, one orbiting around the other. The larger formed itself into continents, oceans, mountains, and forests. The smaller a bright pitted moon.

  Mai could only stare in amazement. Even though they were only a dozen or so feet tall, they looked in every way like the real thing. Mai even swore she could see little storms forming in the atmosphere and tiny rivers flowing from the mountains and into the plains.

  “Mine to do with as I please,” Nariko continued lustfully.

  Nariko clenched her fist and the moon crashed into the planet. Debris and dust shot out between them in slow motion as they cracked apart, their molten cores thrown outwards until all that remained was a swirling storm of rock and lava and fire.

  Mai was horrified, but forced herself to keep working.

  “Look, we better hurry, if the Onikano realizes what we’re doing, she might try to blow this room out.” Mai said a prayer as she apologized to the machine’s spirit and then crossed the feeds. There was a spark and a moan and the barrier came down.

  “I got it,” Mai said, turning her head, but the podium was empty. Nariko was nowhere in sight.

  “She wouldn’t,” Mai said aloud.

  Mai spun around and found herself looking straight into Nariko’s toned stomach. Nariko leaned over to look Mai in the eyes, a suggestive smile on her lips and then something hit Mai in the back.

  Mai felt something warm on her hands. She looked down and saw the tip of Nariko’s tail protruding out of her stomach from behind.

  Mai looked up and tried to speak, but all that came out was a weak gurgle.

  “That was for the hideous remark,” Nariko explained, clicking her tongue.

  Nariko pulled out her tail with a horrible slurping sound and Mai fell to the floor. As Mai grabbed at the hole in her stomach, she watched Nariko gather up her matter into a large steel sphere. Nariko walked over to the blast doors and tore them off their hinges with her bare hands and stepped through.

  There was a snap, followed by a series of explosions. Mai looked up and saw the explosive bolts along the walls firing off one after another. An emergency barrier came down across the doorway. Mai, along with the entire room around her, blew out into space.

  The trees of the hydroponics grove crawled with metallic life as a swarm of robot Kuldrizi closed in. A small group of Daughters in environmental suits formed a circle and fired at the robots attacking them from all directions.

  Some of them jumped in the air above the others, looking like ticks. The Daughters fired relentlessly, tearing into their attackers with a bizarre collection of different kinds of bullets, energy waves, beams, and projectiles.

  “I’m out of ammo,” Rini announced calmly as she slung her pulse rifle down to the floor and pulled out her combat knife.

  “I’ve got more ammo for myself, but it’s not compatible with your weapon,” Shika shouted back.

  “See, this is why we need standardized weapons,” Reika called out as she threw a grenade into the tightening circle around them. “Allowing every Senshi to make their own is just logistical suicide.”

  “Okay, just get us out of this and I’ll give your proposal another look.” Inami called out as she fired into the shell of an approaching robot.

  Mieko shouldered her weapon momentarily and made a sweep with her auger.

  “How many of them are there between us and the nearest exit?” Inami asked as she blew the tentacles out from underneath a charging Kuldrizi.

  The readout was alive with overlapping blips in all directions, closing in for the kill. “Um, all of them, I think.”

  The far wall of the hydroponics grove exploded, tossing robots in all directions. Nariko stepped in, the web of symbols covering her body glowing brightly.

  Some of the metal Kuldrizi turned and charged at her. Nariko raised her hand and her sphere of steel floated alongside of her, then exploded into a hail of razor sharp shards. The robots were shredded to pieces as the shards cycloned about, their fluids leaking out all over the ground. Trees burst, their limbs ground down to little more than sawdust. Nariko spread her wings and flew aloft, her eyes closed as if soaking in a noonday sun. The small ring of daughters watched in alarm as she passed over them.

  “What is that?” Kotone asked.

  “Hit the dirt!” Inami yelled.

  They ducked just in time. The steel shards flew across the grove in unison, tearing apart thousands of robots and plants as they whirled like a storm of steel from one end of the grove to the other.

  Nariko landed at the edge of the grove and tore apart the wall in front of her with her claws and then stepped through, the sphere of steel reforming and following her.

  Ianmi poked her head up and looked around, several twigs stuck in her hair. The trees in the grove had been cut down to mere stumps. Not a single robot remained.

  “I think she was aiming at us, too.”

  A pair of huge robot Kuldrizi charged down the hall at Nariko as she glided bestially toward them. One raised up a huge tentacle and brought it down with incredible force. Nariko caught the tentacle in one hand, stopping it cold. For a moment the Kuldrzi did nothing, as if it were confused, then Nariko squeezed crushing the tentacle in her claws. She yanked back, tearing the metal limb free and then swung it with one hand slapping the robot with its own appendage. The armored form of the machine was crushed like an eggshell. The second Kuldrizi tried to jump on top of her, attempting to crush her with its weight, but Nariko’s sphere shot out long metal spikes, like an anemone, harpooning the creature in a dozen different places. Its red eyes flickered and went out.

  The walls to the brig bulged inward then burst. Only a single cell was occupied. A tall man with salt and pepper stubble sat in the corner of his cell.

  “You?” he said, his eyes wide as saucers as Nariko strode through the smoke.

  “You!” Nariko shot back. “I know you.”

  Rochestri scooted back further as the injured demon pressed up against the barrier of his cell. Stripped of his weapons, he was completely defenseless against this creature. The demon pushed against the barrier and it began to strain. Her unnatural body cracked and groaned under the pressure, until the barrier finally buckled and exploded.

  The demon was on him in a flash,
grabbing him by the throat and holding him aloft.

  “All the questions, all the doubts, all the webs, they all lead back to you, don’t they?” the demon asked.

  Rochestri coughed, struggling to breathe. His feet kicked impotently beneath him.

  The ship rocked from side to side. Distant explosions and gunfire reverberated through the hull.

  “You destroyed my home, my family, my culture. You cursed my people, subjected me to three centuries of an endless living hell. Because of you, even the man I loved was taken from me.”

  The demon spread her shredded wings behind her. “I have more reason to hate you than anyone alive.”

  Despite her fearsome presence, he appeared unimpressed. Rochestri’s mind scrambled for a solution, something to say, something to do, anything that could put him back on his path to power. But, there was nothing. He couldn’t bargain with this monster, or threaten it, or bribe it. The only thing it wanted was to kill him. In a small corner of Rochestri’s mind, a part he thought he had lost long ago, he realized that he deserved it. True fear entered his mind.

  “If you are going to kill me then kill me, traitor,” he spat, “but spare me the little speech. Your words mean nothing to me.”

  The lights in the room flickered. The metal floor and walls shuddered from tentacles breaking down pressure doors nearby.

  The demon raised her claws to strike, anger and hate filled her eyes. Fire swirled around her.

  “Nari, stop!” Keiko called out as she entered the room, her weapon drawn.

  Nariko turned to face Keiko, her red eyes alight. “Why are you standing up for him? He took everything from us. He deserves to die more than anyone in existence. What do we need to keep him alive for?”

  “We don’t need him, that’s not the point,” Keiko explained. “The point is you’re holding on to your hatred so tight, it’s only hurting you. Look what it has turned you into. You have to let it go!”

  Her words made Nariko pause and she looked into her friend’s eyes. For the space of a heartbeat her eyes became remorseful and apologetic.

  “I’m sorry...I can’t. I’m not strong enough.”

  Keiko stepped closer, lowering her weapon and outstretching her hand. “It’s not too late for you. We can put you in stasis until we are ready to end the curse. You can still go back to being human, just let go of your hate!”

  For a moment Nariko’s expression softened and she looked down at her long white taloned fingers that held Rochestri.

  “Please, Nari,” Keiko called out. “Just forgive.”

  Nariko looked into Rochestri’s smug unrepentant face. Defiantly he spit at her, his foul spittle hitting her in the eye. Her countenance twisted into a mask of pure hate.

  “NEVER!”

  Nariko slammed Rochestri to the ground, his frail body shattering effortlessly in her grip.

  With a terrifying howl, the last residue of her humanity was forced out of her heart, the walls shaking and trembling from the death wail, then the demon spread her mighty white wings and flew upward, crashing through the ceiling as if it were nothing more than paper.

  Keiko fell to her knees, her hand clutching over her heart. “Nari...no.”

  Bulkhead after bulkhead gave way before her as she flew, her sphere trailing behind her. Her clawed feet dug into the deck when she landed. Nariko now stood before the fortified door to Nori’s forge and licked her lips in anticipation. Down the hallway Sakurako rounded the corner, her hands enveloped in blue fire.

  “Nari,” Sakurako warned. “I’m not going to let you...”

  Nariko’s sphere whipped out, faster than thought, little more than a snap of a blur. There was a spray of silver blood and Sakurako crumbled to the floor, her severed arms and legs clattering around her before dissolving into ash. Sakurako cried out in horror, her quadriplegic torso writhing in agony as she screamed. Her environmental suit now shredded, it took only a few moments for the powerful poisons in the air to rob Sakurako of consciousness.

  “No witch fire from you today,” Nariko chuckled.

  Risking life and limb, Keiko and Ami ran out into the hallway and began attending to Sakurako’s wounds. Nariko ignored them as they dragged the witch back out of view.

  At Nariko’s command, her sphere of steel came apart into a whirl of sand, then a cloud of mist, then into something even finer than that, an almost invisible vapor. Nariko thrust her hands forward and the vapor seeped into the door, as if the material were porous. Now Nariko slowly began to pull her clawed hands backward and the door began to vibrate. Slow and low at first, then higher and higher, past the range of human hearing until it was no longer a sound that could be heard, but rather a sound that could be felt. As Inami and others gathered up down the hallway, many of them dropped to their knees clutching their chests.

  A hairline crack appeared on the door, then another, then another. Like a growing spider web the door to the forge splintered and fractured, until finally with a deafening bang the door blew apart, its crumbled remains spraying over the floor and lodging itself into the walls.

  Nariko reformed her sphere of steel and stepped in. The gathering Daughters followed cautiously, keeping their distance.

  Nori’s forge had grown wild. Dark machines stood as high as buildings, pulsating like organs, belching putrid black smoke into the air. Waterfalls of sludge and waste cascaded down toward the floors, where crude cuts in the bulkhead allowed the pools of filth to simply drain into the decks below, heedless of who or what may have been down there. Arcs of green lightning arced from twisted column to column, energizing the air and vaporizing whatever twisted, floating robot was unlucky enough to pass through its wake. The floor was covered with sharp, thorny undergrowth, which parasitically burrowed into the bases of the massive machines sucking out the fluids and energy they needed to continue their selfish little lives.

  A swarm of metallic Kuldrizi leapt down at Nariko. Her sphere of steel grew spines and speared every last one. Five huge Kuldrizi lumbered forward, tentacles ready to attack. Nariko’s sphere lashed out, the whipping motions making a snap in the air. For a second the Kuldrizi paused and then all five fell apart, sliced to pieces.

  In the center of the undergrowth, standing nearly three stories tall, was the corrupted Takuya. Now grown into a great crystal of dark amber, pulsating and crackling with energy. It was an exact likeness of the psychic core of the Kuldrizi queen. Near its base, was the unconscious form of Nori.

  Reika nodded to her squad silently and they raised their weapons.

  “Hold your fire,” Inami spat. “We need her to destroy it.”

  Nariko extended her wings and laughed. It was deep and throaty.

  “I’m not here to destroy it,” Nariko corrected.

  Inami paused for a moment, her eyes flicking back and forth. “You’re not?”

  Nariko whipped her white tail about. “No. I’m not your pawn anymore. I have my own plans, my own desires.”

  Inami scratched her neck in confusion. “What do you want, then?”

  Nariko turned around, her red eyes alive with lust. “I want to see the Uragan utterly obliterated.”

  Nariko walked up to Takuya and ran her claws along the surface provocatively. “This is quite a discovery you have pioneered, Inami. A way to strip away the immortality of a demon world.”

  “But it doesn’t work,” Inami said, shifting her weight. “We lost control of the Kuldrizi almost immediately and the ship was corrupted by the contact.”

  Nariko licked the surface of the crystal with her long forked tongue. “That is because it is still incomplete. Takuya here is the key and this ship. They will replace the queen and control the hive directly.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Nariko smiled invitingly. “I’m going to bind myself to it, then fuse with it. I will be in direct control of the hive and I will be immune to its effects.”

  “Masaka,” Ianmi exclaimed in disbelief.

  A few more Daughters entered th
e forge and joined the gathering, members of Shiro squad among them.

  Nariko raised her hands, her eyes distant as she imagined the future. “This will be the greatest shift in the balance of power since the Luminarch was murdered,” she predicted. “You are all still too limited to see its full potential, but I see it and I intend to use it. I will silence every tongue that has ever spoken worship to a demon god. I will go from world to world within the Uragan, stripping them bare, until every last traitor lies dead.”

  The Daughters looked at each other furtively, unsure of how to react.

  “Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad, really,” Taka admitted.

  “Taka!” Michi scolded, smacking her on the back of the head.

  “What?” Taka defended, her wings fluttering. “Since when are killing traitors a bad thing? Personally, I’m sick of them attacking the Confederacy with impunity. I don’t see why we couldn’t just let Oppa-mon do exactly what she wants.”

  “Because she hasn’t told us everything,” Keiko warned as she entered, her cheeks wet. “Nari, once you have destroyed the Uragan, what will you do next?”

  Nariko turned around, a wicked grin on her lips. “Then I will make sure it will never return. Human emotions create demons, so as long as there are humans, a new Uragan will eventually form.”

  “No!” Inami gasped.

  “It is a mathematical inevitability,” Nariko shrugged. “Cold hard math. So, I will change the equation. Only once every human is gone will the Uragan be truly defeated.”

  “Well, screw that, open fire!” Reika ordered.

  Missiles, grenades, bullets, and energy blasts converged on Nariko, but her sphere of steel formed a wall that shielded her from view. It only took a few moments for the wall to be torn apart by the combined firepower, much of it becoming little more than a light falling mist, but Nariko was gone.

  The Daughters looked around for her, but they could not see Nariko anywhere.

  “Up there!” Reika called, her cat ears twitching as they picked up a noise. Reika fired up at the ceiling where Nariko had been clinging, most of the Daughters fired as well.