Major General Yaremova moved through the hallways of the facility like a tiger on the prowl, with Meyer and another Saiph Guard following her closely.
He had barely been a part of the Saiph for a week, and he still didn't quite understand the strange hierarchy among the members of that elite task force. Their tasks and duties varied from dangerous off-world missions to mundane paper work, and those assignments did not always correlate directly with their ranks. So it had been to his great surprise that he hadn't started at the bottom of the food chain and instead spent most of his time since his promotion trailing after Yaremova as she walked around the facility and intimidated people.
Meyer had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant, but the other guard walking with them today was still of higher rank and more senior. Consequently, he found himself wondering why Yaremova had chosen to bring himself along today, and not somebody of equal rank to the other guy. In fact, in these past days, he had often found himself wondering why this woman needed a personal guard in the first place. Purely objectively, she was probably the most terrifying person he had ever met. And he had come face to face with an augmented woman who had fist-fought a scandroid and beaten his superior to death.
But as the trio stepped through the doors of General Neris' office now, he wondered if he might have to correct that assessment once more.
The rooms and offices of the commanding officers were one of the few buildings above ground floor, so they had windows. At their entrance, Neris turned away from the window through which he had watched an incoming ship approach the landing pad, and raised one of his perfectly arched eye brows at them.
General Neris was tall and broad-shouldered, and like most Hunters in excellent physical shape. Other than two impeccably shaped arches above his dark eyes, there was not a single hair on his head. On his face, two pairs of long scars stood out against his dark skin, running from his ears along his cheek bones, where they made a sharp turn down toward his jawline.
It wasn't that Neris had a particularly menacing appearance. He didn't look much different from most other senior Hunters who had served before the days of the Purge. It was Yaremova's reaction to him that made Meyer wary of the man. After they had saluted, Yaremova, that woman who could usually intimidate anyone by just so much as throwing a glance at them seemed to shrink a few inches as the General addressed her.
"Major General Yaremova," Neris nodded. "Thank you for coming."
Neris cast a glance at the two Saiph Guards with his eyebrow still raised, and Yaremova seemed to be reading his thoughts.
"I trust them, Sir," she said.
Meyer felt a tingling sensation at the back of his neck, and straightened his posture. He clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking.
"Very well," Neris said. "Then let's begin. First of all, I need you to explain to me what you were thinking when you came up with the new duty rosters, Major General."
He turned to look back out of the window, toward the launch pad. The name was somewhat misleading – more than half of the surface consisted of a large metal gate, submerged in the ground like a giant maw, that served as the entrance to the facility's hangar and docking bay. These days, the gate stood open pretty much around the clock, as ships were coming and going at an increased frequency.
"I have been informed that the facility is undermanned. Ground personnel is struggling to keep the facilities operational. The orbital stations are running on twenty-two hour shifts," Neris elaborated.
Meyer could see the tension in Yaremova's back muscles underneath her uniform.
"It is a necessity, sir. Given recent events on Symoa and Aenara, and the incident with Lieutenant Dixon's squad, we will have to accelerate the timeline for Purification. I am aware that we need more recruits, and I sent out some of those people specifically to bring back more candidates," Yaremova explained.
A furrow formed on Meyer's brow for a split second. He had never heard of "Purification", but it sounded like it had something to do with the Purge. That operation, however, was largely considered over. Perhaps it was the name for their current mode of operation – the final moments of the Purge, their ongoing hunt of the last remaining augments that hid throughout space.
"A staggering amount of people have requested duty on Helion 7, Major General," Neris said. "That should give you an idea just about how desperate they are."
Yaremova didn't reply, she just lowered her head.
"You are good at starting a fire, Yaremova, but you will need to keep it from burning out too soon," Neris said. "That fire alone cannot fuel unconditional loyalty."
"Yes, Sir..." she muttered, and Meyer began to understand where she might have gotten her ideas of honor and loyalty from in the first place.
"What about Project Astraea then?" Neris asked.
He turned around to face Yaremova now, and fixed his dark-eyed gaze on her. Standing behind her, Meyer couldn't see her face, but the fact that she was speechless for a second told Meyer enough. Astraea was another project he had never heard of before, and he kept his ears peeled in curiosity.
"Still ongoing, Sir," she finally answered cryptically.
"How many men are on it?"
"Just me, at the moment, Sir."
Neris rubbed his hand over his perfectly shaved chin and seemed to ponder something.
"Yaremova," he addressed her, and the softness in his voice made Meyer raise an eyebrow in surprise, while the so addressed seemed to tense up even more.
"I need you focused on your work. Your actual work. Which is to run this station and coordinate Purification. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," she said in a flat voice.
"I appreciate your efforts, but if you burn out our forces now, we will never even get to those later phases of Purification, do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," she replied again. The man talked to her as if she was a child, and to Meyer's utter disbelief, her answers somehow made her sound like one.
"Furthermore..." Neris' gaze darted away from her face and met Meyer's for a moment. "I would like you to reconsider killing prisoners on stage during your sermons. We have the authority to kill them, but the circumstances we write into those reports still matter."
"I understand, Sir," she answered through gritted teeth. "But that man, Becker... he was..."
"He was guilty, yes," Neris said. "Nonetheless-"
"He was vermin, Sir," Yaremova interrupted him.
Neris' second eyebrow shot up to meet his first, near where his hair line would have been, if he hadn't shaved the rest of his head completely.
"He collaborated with the worst of the worst of them," she continued her furious ranting unfazed, "He enticed desertion, and he-"
"Yes, yes, I know all that," Neris waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, and Meyer could see the scars on them. They were fainter than the ones on the man's face, but still clearly visible on his dark skin.
"But the point stands. Not on stage. Not like that. Understood?"
"...yes, Sir," she said, hesitantly.
"Good. Now there's one last thing. Doctor Blake is on his way here and I-"
"Blake?" she groaned. "Why is this abominable cretin still allowed to even set foot on this planet?!"
"He is a doctor, Xenia," Neris spoke to her in a stern voice, and Meyer blinked in surprise at him addressing the woman with her first name.
"He is an NC," she snorted with disdain, spitting out the word. "Not a real doctor."
Neris shook his head.
"He has been tremendously helpful in the past, and his services-"
"He is just a symptom of this disease that is festering in our midst!" she exclaimed, raising her voice. "Stripping people form their augments does not make them pure! He is just as bad as them, he is-"
"Careful now, Major General," Neris spoke coldly and straightened his shoulders as he looked down on the woman.
He crossed his arms before his chest, his scarred hands coming to rest on his biceps. Even standing in her shadow behind her, Meyer had to admit that it was pretty intimidating. It certainly served to silence her.
"You might want to consider your next words carefully."
"...of course... my apologies, sir. I overstepped, and I-"
"I will hear no more of this," Neris said. "He will join the senior commanding officers' table for dinner. And I expect you to compose yourself in his presence, understood?"
She audibly grit her teeth. "Yessir..."
"Good. I don't want the incident from his last visit to be repeated..."
Meyer couldn't believe his eyes, nor his ears. Neris had this woman under his thumb, like a strict father talking to a disobedient teenager. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction at seeing her being reprimanded like that. But when she turned around to face him and the other guard, the furious look in her eyes quenched his elation a bit.
"Yaremova," Neris addressed her once again as they turned to leave. "Don't misunderstand me, I only-"
He was cut off by the buzzing sound of the intercom.
"This is Colonel Farrah from security station two to General Neris," a voice announced.
"Yes, what is it?" he answered with a weary sigh.
"We have an unexpected visitor."
"Doctor Blake? He sure is early this time."
"No sir," the Colonel said. "It's not Blake. I – I don't know how to explain - I think you should come to the docking bay to meet them. And you should bring the Major General. And... as many Saiph as are available. Just to be sure."
A crease appeared on Neris' brow, and he looked up, meeting Yaremova's gaze.
"It is Amy Larsson."
~ ~ ~
Meyer could hear her long before he saw her. A flood of vulgar curses greeted them as they entered the hangar, Yaremova and Neris walking in the front, him and the other Saiph Guard following behind.
The group made their way towards the source of the noise. At the far end of the docking bay, a dozen members of the security guard under Colonel Farrah stood in a semi-circle, weapons ready. As they stepped through, they spotted another Hunter who was facing them with an annoyed look on his face. His scarred hands gripped the two-colored hair of a woman on her knees next to him. Her hands were shackled with a set of anti-aug cuffs – a convenient piece of equipment that would emit a constantly shifting electromagnetic field that was capable of jamming the wearer's augments.
Meyer couldn't help but feel a sense of shock at the sight before him. Larsson looked ragged and worn out, her ill-fitting clothes were ripped and tattered, and if it hadn't been for her eye patch and her strange hair, he would have thought he saw a regular, dirt-poor settler before him. The only thing her appearance had in common with the violent force of destruction he had met on Six was the furious look on her face.
"You bastard! You fucking son of a bitch! Let go of me! You-"
The Hunter who had apparently captured her yanked at her hair and she yelped in surprise and pain.
"Shut up, vermin", he sneered at her. "Or I'll make you."
Something about the man was strange. His look was not the kind of expression most other hunters wore. There was no hatefulness, no disdain. He looked like he was barely suppressing a devious, gleeful smile.
"What's the meaning of this?" Neris asked.
The man saluted. "Sergeant Jacobs reporting in, Sir. I brought a little souvenir from my travels during my leave."
"This is-"
Neris' question was cut off by another flood of profanities from the woman.
"Larsson, as she lives and breathes." The Hunter looked and down at her. "And curses."
"Are you certain? Do we have any witness reports of what she actually looks like? DNA samples?" Neris asked.
Meyer gulped as the captive pirate raised her head and looked at him, but their eye contact lasted only a split second.
"Well, that Becker guy might have recognized her voice," Colonel Farrah remarked, "But..."
"She's vermin, that's what she is," Yaremova chimed in and stepped forward. She bent down to get a closer look at Larsson, who growled at her like an animal.
"I will enjoy crushing you, vermin," she said, which Larsson answered by spitting in her face.
The Hunter tensed, barely noticeably, and clenched his teeth. He tightened his grip on Larsson's hair and yanked her back from Yaremova. Without a word, Yaremova wiped her face and got back up on her feet. She towered over the ragged-looking pirate, and even the hunter who had brought her in. He looked back at the Major General impassively, but for a split second, Meyer had recognized a different look on his face. And he recognized the uniform now. He understood.
"We have to identify her," Neris said. "So we can-"
"We could just kill her right here, who cares who she is?" Yaremova cut him off.
She pulled her gun out in a swift motion and pointed it at Larsson. The Hunter's grip on her hair tightened even further and she winced briefly, but she didn't shy back. She just stared at the barrel of the gun in front of her with her one eye.
"Major General," Neris addressed her icily. "That is enough. We just talked about this."
"But I-"
"Not like this," Neris reiterated, and Yaremova lowered her gun. Meyer could see that her hands were shaking. She was boiling with rage.
"You will regret every breath you took since you let yourself be corrupted by putting that tech into your body, vermin," Yaremova hissed at Larsson.
The pirate looked up and met the Major General's gaze with a strangely bittersweet smile, and whispered, "Oh, but I already do."
"So what shall we do with her?" Colonel Farrah asked, as Yaremova returned to Neris' side.
"For now, throw her in the brig until we can confirm her identity. Pull up the intercom records from that orbital station on Aneara. If she turns out to be who you claim she is, she will face public execution in Neo-Tokyo," Neris commanded. "Wake up two scandroid units to guard her. And under no circumstances remove those shackles."
Two of Farrah's security team stepped forward from the row to take the shackled pirate into their custody, when the Hunter who had brought her spoke up.
"Requesting permission to deliver her to the brig myself, Sir."
"No. You will be debriefed by Colonel Farrah and then return to your post," Neris decided.
"Please, Sir. She was a real piece of work... I'd just like to-"
"I said no!" Neris raised his voice. "And if one of you just so much as lifts a finger against her without my permission, or acts like an uncivilized savage in any other way within the walls of my facility, you will regret it!"
Neris voice carried an aura of authority that made everybody around him tense up. He had directed his words at the security guards, but when he cast a sideward glance at Yaremova, she seemed to shrink a few inches again.
Then, something strange happened. As the security guards approached Larsson to drag her away, Meyer could see a flicker of doubt wash across her face, and she inched back a bit, almost huddling against the legs of the Hunter next to her. This was apparently not going according to her plan. As his gaze met that of the Hunter, he found his fear confirmed.
Meyer cast a quick look around, but nobody else seemed to have noticed.
And he realized, he would have to make a choice.
"What was your name again, soldier?" Colonel Farrah addressed the Hunter now, typing something on a tablet.
"Jacobs," he said. "Sergeant Richard Jacobs. Ma'am."
She raised her eyes from her tablet and looked at him, and a furrow appeared on her brow. She stretched out a hand to the side and the guards stopped their approach for a moment.
"Sergeant," she said, eyeing him up and down. "Why are you wearing a private's uniform?"
At her words, Meyer could feel his heart sink like lead. He hadn't thought about that. It had been hard enough to come up with a faked docking permission code for a guy who was on leave, he hadn't known what their plan would be and that they would be using his old uniform. But the imposter seemed unfazed.
"Ah, that's a long story, ma'am," he said with a charming smile. "One I'd rather tell you once this has been taken care of."
The imposter yanked at Larsson's hair again, pulling her back a bit closer to his side. Meyer could see that she was panting heavily, and under those ill-fitting clothes he suspected every muscle fiber in her body was tensed up. Meyer stared at her, and once she looked back at him, he directed his gaze to a stack of crates next to them, and from there toward a side entrance about fifty feet away. She followed immediately and nodded.
She lowered her head a bit, as much as the man's grip on her hair allowed, and seemed to rub her shackled hands across her face. As she raised her head again, she met Meyer's gaze, now with two eyes, black and grey.
And on an invisible command, all hell broke loose around him once again.
The imposter let go of her hair and with a jerking motion, she simply shattered the cuffs. They were duds, Meyer realized now. Her augments flared to life, as did those of the man next to her. White rings began to glow in his dark eyes as he lunged forward, knocking the surprised Colonel Farrah out with a single punch. He grabbed her body as a shield, while next to him, Larsson jumped to her feet. She made quick work of the two security guards closest to her, by knocking them out with their own guns before they even knew what was happening.
Meyer had seen it before on Six, but once again, the way they could move, that speed and grace of humans that had been augmented - it was utterly mind blowing. Still, they had had an augur at their disposal the last time, and were only facing a squad of five lightly armed hunters. Not a dozen security guards with heavy arms that had already surrounded them when the fight began.
But they had the element of surprise on their side. Before the second guard had sunken to the floor before Larsson's feet, she and the imposter had already begun their retreat toward the crates, using the unconscious Colonel Farrah as a human shield.
Shots rang out all around him, and he could hear Neris and Yaremova yell orders. He didn't hear them. He saw one of the securities approaching the fleeing pair from a dead angle, and he made his choice.
He raised his own weapon, and he shot the man.