"Oh, Annaroza...!" Strasser sighed again, shaking his head once more, this time in a manner most disapproving as the two entered the ship's viewing deck once more. "When we began, you knew as well as I did that we would have to cull a few rabbits so that the flowers could grow without fear of being chewed to pieces. I know you took Ryan in, and I know how much you loved him, despite my misgivings – yet his life purpose has been fulfilled. No, he may not have been able to take his revenge on his father, and no he may not have succeeded in destroying the conglomerate that caused him such suffering. But he has left us with all the tools we need to commence the final movement of our great cosmic orchestra. And he has left you the tools you need to secure your own legacy..."
At the end of his castigation, Strasser's eagle eyes drifted from Sokolova's armoured midriff to her head. Soon his gaze mirrored hers, turning upon the world of Mars rising above the Bellator's chiropteran shadow, their footsteps coming to a halt before the spectacle of the resurgent Red Planet.
"It will please you to know that Ardent Red remains a critical component, despite its rather imperfect state," he continued. "The destruction of the final data key on Hygiea was a setback, that is more than obvious. But you forget, Annaroza, that we have the remaining parts of it to reconstruct the cyberweapon and claim it as ours. We are missing one component, just as a car may miss a single bolt, so now it is our duty to construct a new, spare bolt so that our automobile may move forward again. It can only be done, however, so long as you continue to play your part in our caper."
"Perhaps we can reconstruct the cyberweapon," said Sokolova. "Yet what of Frost? There is no doubt that Sparrow has him in her claws. And she is building an army! The Order of Iron no longer holds the monopoly of power in the underworld. A shadow war is about to break out, and all those who would dare to resist Earth's hegemony now face an existential threat like nothing we've ever seen. How long do you believe it will be before those tank-bred monsters at Sparrow's beck and call will be set loose on Mars? Does the deaths of thousands sound like a 'great victory' to you?"
"Tank-bred monsters," Drakolich mused to himself in nigh silence. "Interesting choice of epithet given the speaker..."
"As a matter of fact, Annaroza, it does," Strasser's lower lip stuck out as he spoke in a nonchalant, indifferent tone. "I expected it to take a million deaths to draw someone so dangerous and yet so wretchedly cunning as Diana Sparrow into the open where I can shoot the metaphorical pheasant in the face. To such a prospect I said, What must be will be – a concept that you have yet to grasp, it would seem. And yet your Hound has managed such a great feat with only a handful of bodies at his disposal, at least compared to what I initially postulated. The best part is that most of them are those of our enemies. Do you not realise what this means?"
"That Sparrow is marshalling her immense supplies and men for war," Sokolova considered, with realisation setting in like a slow-baking cake. "With Frost and an army of homunculi at her beck and call, she no doubt plans to take direct control of operations against the Commonwealth. This will present us with an opportunity to terminate her and all those who would threaten us once and for all."
"An opportunity that we must now seize as a hawk seizes a rabbit in her talons," Strasser smiled. "Only with Sparrow's plot curtailed can we proceed with the great liberation that we have envisioned for this solar system. But now that the game is on, you too must be ready. The time has come, Annaroza, for you to take up the mantle, to take flight as the Angel of War that you yourself asked me to make of you. Not later, not tomorrow – the time to spread your wings is now."
He turned back to face Sokolova, whose amethystine gaze met with Strasser's own gelid cerulescent.
"Be assured of this if nothing else: the Götterdämmerung will come, just like I promised you it would," the general assured his charge. "And not if it comes, but when it comes, when our armadas wash the tyrannous Earth clear of its many infections that threaten to plague the Martian people, you will bear the flaming sword that lights the stars afire. That promise I made to you, on the day I took you in all those years ago, has not changed and will not change."
The general's gentle hand rested on Sokolova's shoulder. Whether significant of comfort or some more sinister, threatening purpose, she could not readily determine.
"We will discuss the details of your Special Mission later this week," declared Strasser, turning about as his expression returned to its prior jollity. "For now, come along. I understand your ship's cooks are preparing dinner."
~
Monday, 20 June.
LOCATION: Sparrow Estate
Beverly Hills, United States of America
Earth, Core Space
Day length: 24h
Even in the aftermath of Earth's most terrible cataclysms wrought by global warming in the twenty-first century, Los Angeles remained a crowning jewel of American culture amidst the immense Californian wasteland. In the Second Great Depression that dominated the 2040s, the desert expanded from the south and east, with blistering summers leaving hectares of formerly arable land as scorched and cracked as the wastes of Death Valley. Millions of migrants fleeing the burning, barren hellscapes of Arizona and Mexico turned to the West Coast for refuge. The city's resources found themselves strained by such a sudden massive influx of people, and Los Angeles was soon found to be woefully under-equipped to support itself. The absence of help from an already beleaguered United Nations in the face of a new Cold War, only served to deepen the crisis.
Los Angeles was saved from desolation only by the timely intervention of the Sparrow Corporation. Under the Diana Initiative pioneered by the corporate scion, millions of tonnes of food and water were shipped in from hydroponic farms and treatment centres positioned in the east until additional farms could be constructed in California. It took three years, three hundred thousand dead by starvation and five hundred thousand by disease, but the present prosperity of the city would attest to the scheme's success. Now six new hydrofarms, three new water treatment stations and a fusion reactor supplied the city with all of the food, water and power that it would in all likelihood ever need.
Such was the glittering cityscape that Beverly Hills, restored in status as Los Angeles' wealthiest neighbourhood, resided amidst, so considered Diana Sparrow as her motorcade came to a halt before a grand mansion, constructed in a classical style. The entrance reminded her of the White House that she so frequented in the meetings that her position often mandated; it had the same curved, columned entryway, with the drive-in being along a hemispherical gravel road. The chief difference between the White House and the Sparrows' estate were the sand-yellow bricks along the base and the terracotta orange roof along the latter, not to mention the size. Furthermore, the extant presence of several cars and a white VTOL on the roof, with the Sparrows' spread-winged emblem on its tail boom, denoted the presence of the Sparrow patriarch himself – Octavius, lauded as the greatest corporate oligarch to have graced the world. Several of the company's top executives were here as well, almost certainly here to discuss business as Octavius so often did within his own home. The corporate scion Diana, however, had arrived for a calibre of business vastly different to the normal affair. Everything was going in exact accordance with her plan.
Entered Sparrow in her grey-suited glory, the mahogany double doors to the dining room parting at the behest of her two black-suited guards. The pale skin, bald barcoded heads and shining eyes behind their black sunglasses unveiled them to those aware as homunculi. One of them was carrying a satchel bag around his shoulder.
The ceiling of the dining room itself was propped up with four marble Doric columns in the corners. The chamber's surrounding, painting-adorned wallpaper was as flashing white as the stone towers and the busts surrounding the doors. Like the doors through which Sparrow and her entourage had entered, the oval table and the chairs surrounding it were fashioned from dark brown wood, the tabletop electroplated with polished white steel to match the rest of the room.
Seated on the chairs, only the head nearest to Sparrow was a gathering of white-suited Sparrow Corporation executives and major shareholders. Octavius made a frequent habit of discussing important matters of business over lunch served by the many robots staffing the Sparrow manor. Not a single dinner plate adorned the table this time, however.
At the other head of the table opposite to Sparrow's position, an elderly man in a black suit perched his interlocked hands on the table. His features were a close match to those of Sparrow the spymistress, sharing her Caucasian complexion, emerald eyes and chestnut hair, with streaks of ghost white running through it. His nearly youthful face remained hard as steel, only his many wrinkles and his hair betraying any hint of his true age to the wider world around him.
"Diana," he stated to Sparrow. His was a low, booming voice accustomed to the privilege of command, much like the spymistress who spoke in a warmer yet authoritarian tone. He was unveiled as a man of incalculably high status in a solar system dominated by powerful corporations with wealth rivalling nation states.
"Father," she returned the greeting to Octavius Sparrow. "I trust you didn't bring me all the way back to Earth, merely to say hello?"
"Of course not," the corporate patriarch's ironclad expression remained unaltered by his daughter's joviality. "Sit down, Diana. I want to speak with you."
She seated herself at the opposite end of the table to her father, the two guards standing watch at her side.
"Mendoza tells me you've been ... busy," Octavius stated.
"Do you think I sit around all day doing nothing?" Diana smirked. "The President wouldn't allow it and neither would your tutelage."
"Maybe there's something you want to tell me," Octavius suggested in a stern tone. "About one of his projects."
"You would have to ask the man himself," shrugged Diana. "It is true, some of Mendoza's projects can be rather eccentric, and I myself am not particularly fond of those ... 'cybs' he's been creating. But you cannot expect me to keep him on a leash all the time. Otherwise he'd never get anything useful done."
"Perhaps the name 'Homunculus' rings a bell?" Octavius' voice turned venomous.
A brief pause. A razor smile tugged at Diana's cheeks and her virescent eyes flashed like a knife blade.
"Now that you mention it, it does ring a bell," she stated. "The Homunculi are my pride and joy. My finest creations."
"What are they for?" Octavius demanded.
"Soldiers," Diana answered him. "Special operatives. Spies. And of course, bodyguards. Conditioned from their genesis for combat, intelligence gathering – engineered from the very beginning of their genome to serve as proud defenders of Mother Earth and her interests."
Octavius' eyelids twitched.
"Get rid of them," he ordered of her.
"Get rid of them?" Diana queried with feigned surprise.
"We've been over this a thousand times, Diana!" Octavius thundered, virescent eyes flashing as his fist pounded the table. "The genetics technology pioneered by my company will never, ever be misused for war! Not while I breathe, and not when my successor takes over the company after me!"
"I'm afraid you've hit a small spanner in the works," Diana stated as she tilted her head. "Who do you think will take over the corporation after you?"
"Octavius Sparrow has already named his successor," one of the executives at the table announced. "James Irons will take over from him."
To which Diana responded by gesturing to one of her guards. The homunculus opened his satchel bag and placed a globular object upon the table. While Octavius' eyes widened at the sight, the whole table recoiled in horror.
"Would that be this James Irons?" Diana motioned to a cleanly severed head, a look of terror permanently implanted on his mangled face.
"Wha-" one of the executives stammered. "W-what did you do?!"
"What did I do?" Diana repeated. "No, no, you misunderstand. You see, James Irons was caught in the crossfire during the battle for Port Royal. Struck by a stray Spider missile. His body was disintegrated in an instant, and his head was all that could be recovered. Unfortunate."
"But Irons wasn't in Port Royal for the battle..." stated another executive, only for Diana to turn on him.
"I find myself inclined to disagree," she remarked in her ever nonchalant tone, locking her fingers together on the table.
"If you think I'm going to name you my successor as head of the company after this, you are horribly mistaken!" Octavius snarled through his gnashed teeth, rising from his seat. "You will not intimidate me into giving up this company for your heliopolitical power games!"
"Who said anything about intimidating you?" questioned Diana. "You were the saviour of the Old World, and without you, humanity would not be at the height of its glory. But the Old World is gone. The New World faces dangers far different to what defined our childhoods. And I'm afraid it's no secret that you are woefully unprepared to tackle them."
She snapped her fingers, and the four doors to the side of the dining room opened wide. From each stepped two more homunculi, these ones dressed in combat armour and cradling their fearsome particle rifles in their arms. The executives gathered around the table winced and withdrew into their chairs as the supersoldiers took positions around the hall. All but Octavius, whose fury could be observed growing with every second.
"This is not an attempt to extort you, Father," Diana stated. "This is the new generation taking over from the old."
"The feds will hear of this travesty!" one of the executives protested. "I'll send you to prison myse-"
The whiplash crack of a particle bolt shot across the room, striking the recusant in the torso and melting the chair behind him. His head smashed down onto the table, a hole burned clean through his chest and the back of the chair.
"I find myself inclined to disagree," Diana remarked again as the remaining executives trembled in their chairs.
Octavius was about to protest once again when he finally realised what his daughter had come here for. The fury bedecking his face settled down into a despondent glare, and finally one devoid of all emotion.
"I suppose you plan to do it yourself, then," he sighed.
"Do it myself?" Diana spoke before a short laugh. "Father, I'm a spook, not a monster. But it may or may not please the court to know I do have that covered." She turned back to face the double doors, and shouted: "Colonel, please, entertain us with your presence!"
Octavius and the other Sparrow executives turned to the double doors behind Diana as they were thrown open with a slam. A new figure in an enormous suit of smoke-grey powered armour stepped into the room, each strike of his sabatons against the floor resonating in the chamber like thunder. A customised helmet obscured his face, its two wasp-like optics shimmering a piercing azure, but the overall design of the armour was the same as the other homunculus soldiers, up to the flaming skull emblem on his breastplate. A black skirt cape wrapped around his waist as a symbol of authority, obscuring a holster for a giant handgun, easily the size of an autocannon. Along his exposed cybernetic arms, two scimitar-like vibro-blades attached themselves to hinges on his wrists, waiting to be flicked out at his command.
The cyborg behemoth stopped at Diana's side, revealing him to be several heads taller than the other homunculi in the hall and at least double the breadth. He crossed his arms, his cerulescent glare resting like trained gunsights onto the congregation before him.
"May I introduce Colonel Edward Frost," Diana announced with a proud gleam in her eye. "The new commander of Sparrow Corporation's elite special operations unit, Division Alpha."
"If you're going to kill me here and now, get on with it!" Octavius barked at the armoured giant looming ahead of him, as everyone else gazed upon Frost with even greater fear than watching their comrade be shot to death for daring to challenge Diana's might.
"The world will remember you fondly for your lengthy service to humanity, Father," said Diana. "I will see to it that you get a state funeral, with full military
honours. But for the time being, I propose a toast."
As Diana poured herself a glass of red wine, the human-sized particle cannon affixed to Frost's back raised itself onto his right shoulder. The energy weapon's demonic stare settled on Octavius' frame as it thrummed to life, purple energy glowing within the heavy barrel.
"To the future, today!" Diana announced.
Her glass raised up high, and almost everyone around the table was nearly blinded by a brilliant magenta solar flare, a deafening thunderblast reverberating through the dining hall. When the flash subsided, everyone's attention turned to where the great Octavius Sparrow had once been – only his obliterated chair and the partially melted head of the table remained.
"I don't suppose anyone else here has any problems with my leadership?" the surviving Sparrow queried.
The pronounced silence lashed the hall.
"Smart move," Diana commented with a smile, taking a sip from her wine glass. "Spread the word. Octavius Sparrow succumbed to a stroke, and intends to be cremated in a private ceremony. His last will and testament was to name me as the chief executive officer of Sparrow Corporation. And if anyone has a problem with these new arrangements and fails to let me know right now, my contacts within the intelligence corps will tell me. And when I say nobody here wants that to happen, I shouldn't have to speak twice. Besides, you might all like working with me, especially once you all begin to profit from my efforts!"
~
With the executives taken care of and ordered home, Diana Sparrow's victory was all but assured. The Occator Conglomerate was within her vice-like grasp, and now too was her late father's megacorporation. Sufficient resources to carry out her grand campaign had now been secured in full. Everything was in place to wage her shadow war against those who would threaten the sanctity of this Earth. Everything was going in accordance with her foresight.
This Sparrow contemplated as she perused the stellar map of the night before her eyes, her newest, ever faithful attack dog standing by her side. The planets had aligned themselves for her as she looked out from the balcony of her recently deceased father's mansion – Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were all visible to her naked eye.
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