24991125 | 0342
VTOL En-route | Hamad International Airport | Free City of Doha
25°15'38.14"N
51°36'49.56"E
The sandstorm roiled in the horizon behind her.
A living wall of sand and storm.
The VTOL’s cabin hummed with a steady, soothing insistence.
Its powerful engine making good time.
Lucien turned from the co-pilot seat to face her.
“We will be reaching Hamad Transatlantic Aviation Hub in ten minutes, Miss Tempess.”
She nodded.
“His Highness had arranged for you to board a commercial charter.”
She nodded again.
“I am sorry we could not do more, but it was the best we can secure under such short notice.”
“You had done more than enough for me, Lucien. You and Soren both.”
Lucien smiled as he bowed.
“Well, if it is any consolation,” he chuckled, “it’s Business-class.”
Shirley laughed at that.
Lucien smiled and turned back to the front.
Shirley looked out the viewport.
The desert night slid beneath the cockpit glass. Outside, the horizon glowed an unhealthy amber, clouded by dust, smoke, and reflected emergency light.
Somewhere far behind them, was Floodzone Cairo.
They left Cairo behind them.
A city overwhelmed by the river Nile.
In the time since they departed the Au’rore, the holo-media had scrambled to cover the story.
They already designated the city as Floodzone Cairo.
The diplomatic channel, an old-fashioned FM modulator, was switched on.
The air-traffic comms never stopped.
“—repeat, levee breach confirmed—multiple sectors—no, we’ve lost that channel—”
“—civilian lift at capacity, we’re turning people away—”
“—airspace saturated, divert everything that can fly—Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, anywhere with tarmac—”
“—this is Control, say again, are you telling me the river’s in the metro—?”
As a courtesy, Lucien had asked the pilot to dial the volume down.
Not off. Never off. Just… softer.
As sand against glass.
Shirley tuned it out.
Lucien sat in the copilot’s seat, his relaxed posture betrayed his courage under fire.
A man who’d learned to function under permanent catastrophe.
He rested one elbow casually on the console, gloved fingers dancing over the controls with elegant restraint.
He radioed back to the L’Aurore to give Soren a sitrep.
He hadn’t said much since takeoff, but he had been watching out for her out of the corner of his eye.
It was his profession.
To be aware, present and not seen.
“How are things back there?” Shirley spoke up.
He turned to her then.
“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked, checking the time.
“Not really.” She replied, “I sleep very little.”
“Really bad,” Lucien sighed, replying her question, “and I’m afraid it’s only the beginning.”
Shirley fell back then.
The silence lingered.
“You know,” Lucien spoke up then, “His Highness is going to be unbearable after this.”
Shirley blinked.
He turned around.
“About… the flood?” she asked dryly.
Lucien smiled. “About you.”
She smiled before she could stop herself.
“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “You mean I shouldn’t have gave him that kiss?”
“He fancies you,” Lucien continued, utterly unfazed. “The man had not fancied anyone for a long time.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“He’s the Crown Prince of the Free City of Monaca. There are plenty of women.”
“Yes,” Lucien said coolly, “but he never met anyone like you.”
“How so?”
Lucien considered that, just for a moment.
He chose his next words carefully.
“You don’t want anything from him.” he said simply.
“You don’t look at him like he owed you the world.”
She was silent, contemplating.
“You don’t pretend not to see who he is.”
Shirley looked back out the viewport, the amber glow washing across her reflection.
“I see him, yes” she said. “He has heart.”
Lucien nodded. “You mean honor.”
“An honorable man, yes.” she said as she looked out to the desert. “That’s rare.”
“Extraordinarily,” Lucien replied. “Most people see the title first. Or the power. Or the idea of him.”
“But he is all of that,” Shirley said, “he does not give me the impression of a womanizer.”
“He is not.”
“Many in his position would be,” she continued, “he had the world beneath his feet, any woman would want him as their mate.”
He shrugged slightly.
“He is different.” Lucien said.
“Is that why you follow him?”
“Perhaps,” Lucien allowed, “a man must believe in something, lest he falls for anything.”
“I can tell,” Shirley said, contemplating.
“When?” he asked.
“The desert roses.”
“You do not like them?”
She paused.
“I should not have told you this.” She breathed.
“I am discreet,” Lucien said evenly, “a man in my line of work must.”
“A flower,” Shirley said, “is not worth...”
She caught herself.
“He is… an idealist.” Lucien smiled placatingly.
She huffed softly. “Idealists are the worst.”
“How so?”
“They will try to fix the world.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“It’s not wrong,” she smiled, “it’s just there are easier paths.”
“You saw an honorable man. Trying his best in an unfair world.”
“Most people would try to live in the world,” Shirley said, “not try to fix it.”
“My prince is a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it…”
“Saw war and tried to stop it.” Shirley finished, smiling.
“You know your history.”
“Is that why you follow him?”
“To the ends of the world, Mademoiselle.”
“You are a good man, Lucien.”
“I strive to be.”
Another moment of silence lingered.
“Would you love a man like that?” Lucien asked then, leaning back and casting his gaze back, askance.
Shirley smiled.
“My, my, Lucien, are you trying to play cupid?” Shirley smiled mischievously.
“Should I?” he smiled.
“No.” she said, lips curled.
He sighed.
A moment passed.
“I’m just curious.” He spoke up again.
“To what?”
“To wondering if I will ever have the pleasure of seeing you again.”
She fell silent.
“Mademoiselle?”
“I’m thinking,” Shirley replied, then softer, “I’m thinking.”
Silence settled between them, comfortable, unclaimed.
“So, you’re not in love with him,” Lucien stated.
There was no accusation in his tone.
She smiled again, smaller this time. “No.”
Lucien shrugged.
“Well, for a brief few days.” he went on, “you made him feel… ordinary. For a moment.”
She winced lightly at that. “That sounds worse.”
“No,” Lucien laughed lightly. “Trust me. For a man like him? It’s everything.”
“I’m glad then,” she said.
“Should I tell him, then?” he asked.
“I thought you said you were discreet,” she pouted.
He looked at her then.
“For you.”
“Ah,” She leaned back into her seat.
Another moment of silence.
“No, it’s all right.” Shirley said, “I left him a note.”
He inclined his head.
“I have a feeling… that he already knows,” Shirley finished.
Lucien smiled and shook his head in resignation.
“Sir, excuse me for the interruption,” it was the pilot, “Hamad International is flagging us.”
Lucien placed his headphone on to respond to the hail.
He rattled off a series of IFF codes, and requested clearance to enter the airspace.
Shirley resumed her gaze out of the viewport.
The radio crackled again, traffic increasing, volume escalating.
“—Doha Control, this is Rescue Seven, we are out of stretchers, repeat, out of—”
“—I repeat, do not divert Floodzone relief taskforce, route yourselves to—”
“—divert the next wave to Hamad, we’ll figure it out on the ground—”
“—we invoke the Geneva Accords, humanitarian priority override—”
Below them, Hamad International Airport was abuzz with activities.
A hive of steel and machine.
Planes scrambling to clear the runway in record speed.
Emergency beacons flaring red and blue.
Aircraft stacked in holding patterns like anxious birds.
“We are cleared to land, sir.” The pilot said.
Lucien nodded.
“Take us down.”
The VTOL began its descent, and the full scale of the chaos revealed itself.
Flights from Cairo—dozens of them—lined up wing to wing, bellies full of people who had left their homes with nothing but documents and fear.
Ground crews sprinted between aircrafts, tending to the machines who needed their attention most.
Medical teams triaged on bare concrete.
Families clustered beneath improvised shade.
Their eyes hollow, haunted.
Their hands clutching bags that held entire lives in fabric and plastic.
The aftermath of Heaven’s Fall.
Shirley felt it then.
Not panic. Not sorrow.
Pressure.
The kind that precedes fracture.
Hamad International Airport strained to the breaking point.
The VTOL touched down with a soft, precise thud, its engine block powering down as security teams converged.
The pilot waited for the engines to full powered down before he unsealed the hatch.
Lucien unstrapped himself as thanked the man.
He moved to help Shirley with her luggage.
“It’s heavy,” Lucien gasped.
“Yes.” Shirley chuckled, “you know, girl’s stuff.”
“Where you have in there? Cinder blocks?”
“My toys.” She said, cryptic.
To his credit, Lucien soldiered on.
As the ramp lowered, the heat of the desert rushed in.
Dust, sweat, fear, humanity in all its raw density.
Shirley allowed herself one last, lingering look.
A flash of witfulness.
Of longing.
Of innocence.
Lucien awaited her.
Silent and patient.
They descended the ramp.
Security was waiting for them.
Their weapons were not raised.
Their stance not aggressive, not ceremonial.
But they are on edge, their nerves clearly frayed.
A diplomatic envoy was the last thing they wanted to deal with tonight.
Lucien approached the captain.
Someone shouted instructions in three languages at once.
He produced their papers.
Someone else wept openly into a phone that wasn’t connecting.
The captain took a cursory glance and nodded.
“Welcome to Doha,” the captain said quietly as he handed the papers back to Lucien, “Miss Tempess, if you will follow us, we will escort you to the terminal.”
Lucien nodded to Shirley.
But the captain moved to interdict.
He placed a hand gently on the bodyguard’s chest.
“Not you.” The captain said, “papers cleared only her.”
“I have orders — “ Lucien began hotly.
A gentle hand forestalled him.
Shirley straightened her jacket.
She looked to Lucien.
The hot desert wind swept through the tarmac then.
Lucien shrugged.
“This is as far as I can take you.”
“I think I can manage from here.” Shirley said.
Lucien nodded.
Then, almost as an afterthought.
“You would have made a fine princess,” Lucien sighed.
“I doubt so, I would be more be like Diana,” she remarked, smiling.
“The Princess of Wales?”
“The same.”
Lucien laughed, “you will always be our princess.”
Shirley enfolded Lucien in an embrace.
He felt it then.
The finality.
He returned it softly.
The engine hummed.
He inclined his head, just slightly.
“Au revoir, Rose du Désert.”
Desert Rose.
Shirley’s lips trembled, ever so slightly.
“Thank you, Lucien. For everything.”
He hesitates, only a fraction.
“We’ll meet again, under kinder skies.”
Lucien saluted and boarded the VTOL.
Shirley watched him go.
She watched him embarked upon the VTOL.
She watched until the VTOL lifted off.
* * *
They reached the entrance to Terminal 6 after a brisk ten-minutes’ walk.
The captain moved to an access panel as his guards turned around.
To the crowd.
The refugees stirred.
“Stay back,” the guards barked.
The doors hissed open.
“Go,” the captain said to Shirley.
She need not be told twice.
She thanked the captain, stepped past and walked through the slow rotating doors.
The transition was immediate.
The stinging desert wind vanished.
The stench of sweat and bodies.
The press of bodies dissipated.
The doorway’s built-in wind tunnel engaged. —two massive fans above and below her blowing the last traces of sand from her coat and hair.
Cool, perfectly filtered air swept over her.
She breathed in, slow and controlled.
Azure-Fuyukaze climate systems.
Always precise.
Always refreshing.
Inside Terminal 6, the world shifted from disaster zone to curated luxury.
Travellers and uniformed crew moved in orderly streams, their voices layered over soft lounge music and the faint clink of utensils from the 24-hour cafés.
The faint clink and chime of the coffee wares.
Even at this hour, the hub was alive.
Cosmopolitan, polished, efficient.
Shirley let the ambience wash over her.
At last, civilization.
Inwardly, she allowed herself a small relief.
At least this part of her ordeal was over.
She made for the EVE Elite Lounge.
She was famished.
She wanted to eat something luxurious.
She wanted to drink something nice.
She checked her chrono.
Her flight won’t be for another three hours.
Despite it being a diplomatic charter.
Business-class. Lucien had said.
She smiled.
She pulled the expensive silk scarf she had wrapped around her neck and discarded it.
She’d buy a new one once she was back home.
Or perhaps she could let one of her suitors choose one for her.
Not because she needed him to.
She just found the thought… enticing.
She approached the check-in of the lounge.
“Miss Tempess,” the manager on duty greeted, “the pleasure is mine.”
Shirley smiled.
“We were expecting you.” The manager said without preamble, “please, this way.”
He stepped out from behind the counter.
Meticulous and impeccable.
A lounge staffer quickly approached to take her luggage.
She let the case go without a second glance.
“Monaco embassy had appraised us of the situation,” the manager said conversationally, “we were so relieved you managed to escape Floodzone Cairo.”
She nodded as she was ushered into a private room within the lounge.
“I’m hungry.” Shirley said before she was even seated.
“We already have your usuals flown in an hour ago,” the manager said, “Chef Orsini prepared them personally.”
“Thank you,” she said.
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The service cart arrived a minute later.
The attendant bowed and transferred the tray from the cart to the table.
The manager walked over as the attendant left.
“Allow me,” he said, lifting the cover.
Shirley smiled.
Bistecca de Florentine.
Cut and plated.
Bite-sized chunks neatly arranged over the T-bones.
Three slabs.
Sea salt.
She dug in without preamble.
The manager returned with a Brunello.
Already breathing.
He poured her a glass and left the bottle within arm’s reach.
“Enjoy your meal, Miss Tempess.” He said as he turned to leave.
She ate.
She drank.
She lounged back when she was finished.
She reached into her handbag and pulled forth her phone.
One message.
Tempess.
Kurt.
She texted back as two staffers cleared the table.
She looked up from her phone.
“Rosé.”
The staffer nodded.
A chime.
Where are you?
Her rosé arrived, chilled in a bucket of ice.
The staffer poured her a glass and left.
Hamad. Terminal 6.
She picked up her glass.
Are you compromised?
No.
Silence.
You have a flight?
Yes.
Don’t wait up.
You enroute?
She waited.
No reply.
Shirley pouted.
She drained the glass and poured herself another.
The manager came to check on her just as she finished the bottle.
“Do you have everything you need?” he asked.
“Yes, I need to get going now.” Shirley smiled as she stood.
“I hope you enjoyed your time with us,” the manager smiled, “I wish you a pleasant flight.”
Shirley smiled and exited the lounge.
She continued on, stopping by to browse the duty-free shop before heading toward Ground Control.
Behind the counter sat a woman—Arabian, though of uncertain origin—who glanced up as Shirley approached.
She smiled, the kind of smile Shirley recognized instantly as insincere.
Forced, and weary.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the woman printed Shirley’s ticket on a transparent flim-sheet and slid it across the counter.
Business-class.
As Lucien said.
She accepted the ticket with a slight nod.
“Concourse 26, boarding at 0335 hours. Enjoy your flight, miss,” she said in the same sweet tone she’d probably used a hundred times that night.
Shirley wanted to pouted, but she merely smiled indulgently.
She flicked the slim-sheet as she walked.
She could never understand the need for pretence for flim-sheets as a token of prestige.
Had she flew Coach, they will zip her flight deets unto her personal devices.
But Business-class, and suddenly a piece of imitation-paper became a symbol of prestige.
A golden ticket to the world’s best hospitality.
At least, the best hospitality money can buy.
Marketing gimmick, she snickered, corporate pandering.
To be fair, the airline deserved its reputation.
It wasn’t the service she disliked, just certain people who abused it.
Being EVECorp, she could picture those executives.
Pompous peacocks, all of them.
All flushed with self-importance as they strutted onto their flights, soaking in the posturing and pampering of the crew.
Shirley bit her lips lightly, shaking her head.
People, she could never understand them.
She pouted then, she still couldn’t believe Kurt told her not to wait up.
Well, if it is any consolation, it’s Business-class.
Shirley smiled cheekily.
She was so absorbed in her own thoughts about which spa package she want to pamper herself when she got back she did not see the Electron Mace arcing towards her.
The Electron Mace.
Shirley stepped to the right.
The Mace missed.
The pavement cracked.
The stench of ozone overwhelming the engineered scent of the terminal.
Shirley turned to regard a woman shrouded in desert garments.
“Harlot,” she hissed softly.
She lifted her mace and swung again.
Shirley stepped back.
A flicker of surprise passed through her assailant’s face.
“Whore,” she spat disdainfully.
“Do I know you?” Shirley asked.
She spotted three more figures emerging from the corner of the retail rows.
“Witch,” the last spat venomously.
“Miss, you got me mistaken for someone else.”
But the woman was not listening.
She lunged at her again.
Shirley’s thought raced.
“Lilith!” her attacker shrieked.
Her memory snapped into place.
They reserved the vilest of names only for her.
Hag. Crone. Maleficent.
Despite herself, Shirley pouted.
I am pretty. She thought.
“Temptress. Whore. Babylon.” insults accompanied each swing.
Shirley’s brows furrowed.
I hate that name.
Painted-Face. Abomination. Witch-queen.
Church. Shirley realised.
They converged upon her.
Shirley breathed out.
She moved.
The world slowed.
Her assailants slowed.
She danced away from the next swing.
A stride.
Two strides.
The breadth widened.
The shrouded woman did not relent.
Shirley struck.
* * *
They saw her before she saw them.
For the woman before them remained their foe made flesh.
The public face of a faceless corporate machine, the symbol of oppression and godlessness.
The face of the New World Order.
The face of the corporations who killed the world in their mad and wanton pursuit of power and profits.
They never met her once, but already they loathed her.
Their High Priestess told them tales.
Of how she was conceived with veil sorcery and unholy ritual.
She sowed in all her acolytes the seed of undying hatred.
The Harbingers pledged to slay her where she be, in the name of all that is holy.
But of the four, the leader kept his composure and cool head.
“Stay your fury, brothers,” the apparently leader said softly, but the other three heard his voice crackled over their comms, “she is the Huntress, one of the Enforcers, she killed more of our kin than we slewed the infidels of the faceless tower she serves. Do not take her lightly.”
The others quieted at their leader’s words.
“No one have set eyes on her for years, brother,” the second one hissed, “this is our chance to serve our Lady and our Lord.”
They are in the Free City, there will be repercussion for this strike.
The princes of the city; heir-descendants to the the ancient lords of the deserts and rulers of these lands, will not take kindly to this affront.
But they will say nothing, because even the Lords of the Free Cities will not cross the Church of the Nine.
“My lord Adam,” Zora, the woman among them, whispered, “if we are to strike, we need to do it now.”
“My lord,” the fourth echoed with impatience.
Only the third among them, remained characteristically silent.
Adam noted his interest when he looked at her.
Too long.
Too interested.
He would reprimand him.
Later.
Adam Nightblade took a deep breath to steel himself, his keen eyes took in his surroundings, noting the positions of key security stations and personnel.
“Security response minimal, my lord,” Zora said again, reading Adam’s train of thoughts, “we will strike her down and make a break for our sanctuary, for this is our Holy Land.”
“Our cause is just, lord.” Gideon hissed.
“If we are to strike, it must be now.” Zora added.
“Yes, whilst our cause is just, we should exercise extreme caution,” Adam said irritably, albeit reluctantly given their tactical disadvantage.
Zora flashed him a look.
His Templars are lusting for the Harlot’s blood.
If he denied them this kill…
…he shall not command them soon.
Inwardly he cursed.
His hand was forced.
He drew a slow breath, steadying himself.
His keen eyes swept the concourse, mapping security posts,
Exit routes, blind spots, guard rotations.
Now or never.
“We strike, as one” Adam hissed, silencing his misgivings. “Positions.”
The others fanned outward, silent, disciplined, shadows sliding along the edges of the wide concourse.
Adam kept pace, measuring.
“No litanies. No verses,” he whispered into his comms, “strike to kill. Disengage.”
The Harbingers acknowledged in silence.
Cloaks fell away.
Weapons charged.
Ozone bled into the air.
Zora moved first.
She broke from cover, closing the distance rapidly.
Her desert shroud unfurled to reveal her Electron Mace.
They broke concealment.
The Harbingers emerged from behind the luxury retail.
Zora struck.
Her mace arced toward the woman’s flank—
—and missed.
Missed.
Adam blinked.
Shirley Tempess had vanished.
She sidestepped the blow.
Adam’s mind was racing.
How?
The pavement exploded where the blow landed.
Adam felt his pulse spike.
Too clean.
Impossible.
Zora was caught equally off-guard.
She snarled and pressed the attack, hurling invective with each swing.
Harlot. Whore. Witch.
But the woman retreated, yielding ground.
Adam frowned.
Her strides.
She was backing away.
Not fleeing.
Adam saw it then.
Her eyes.
Those are not the fear-filled eyes of a woman.
Those are the eyes of a predator.
It was he, who now felt the sliver of fear.
The others closed in.
They boxed her in, their maces.
“Brothers,” Adam began “fall –“
Shirley moved.
She vanished before his eyes.
Adam was bewildered.
His eyes could not follow her.
She waited until all four weapons were within killing distance.
Then she struck.
The world fractured.
His Harbingers went flying away.
Tossed aside as ragged dolls.
Zora and Gideon both recovered, they looked at each other.
Disbelief in their eyes.
They missed their mark entirely.
She was pulling away before they even saw her.
Her speed, inhuman.
She flowed between them.
She came straight at him.
Adam felt the impact before he saw her.
She closed twenty feet in a heartbeat.
A flash.
A boot.
She drove a violent kick into his midsection with impossible force.
Armor buckled. Ribs shattered.
The air fled his lungs as he was hurled backward.
Adam gritted his teeth.
This cannot be.
In the same breath, she turned and caught Harbinger 03’s mace with her elbow.
In his pain-clouded mind, Adam can vaguely recall no one bested his brother in a fight before.
Yet, this diminutive, slender girl blocked it with her bare elbow.
Her bare elbow.
She stopped bone-breaking force with her slender elbow.
Harbinger 03 backed away, seemingly perplexed.
Reluctant.
Sora and Gideon ran up behind her.
They struck.
As one.
But Tempess was faster.
Her fist and foot found them before their weapons can find her.
Fast.
Forceful.
Explosively forceful.
Adam dragged himself up just as Shirley sent his Harbingers to the floor.
Again, in the spans of seconds.
Both of his Harbinger thrown into the air.
Zora crashed into the check-in counter.
Gideon skidded ten feet before momentum bled out.
Their maces clattered from their slack grip.
Gideon landed groaning, next to him.
Zora managed to roll out of the way as Shirley drove a foot where her head was.
Her leg went clean through the solid counter.
Adam groaned as he forced himself upright.
Combat stims flooded his system, knitting bone even as uncomprehending panic clawed at his thoughts.
He failed to anticipate this.
“What was that?” Gideon rasped.
Adam’s mind reeled.
Even augmented, she should not be faster than them.
Then he saw it.
Shirley Tempess and Harbinger 03.
They were fighting.
Hand-to-hand.
Melee.
They are a blur of motions.
Their movement faster than humanly possible.
Their punches faster than humanly perceptible.
Each blow landed with thunderous force—enough to pulp a human body.
Shirley was fast.
Harbinger 03 matched her tempo.
A punch. A feign.
A jab. A dodge.
A knee. A block.
A roundhouse kick. A grapple.
They grappled, each laid hands on each other.
He grappled her, swinging her around he slammed her forehead into a flight counter.
The marble broke.
Adam felt that.
Shirley didn’t.
She lashed out with her fists, broke his deathgrip and kicked his legs from under him.
As Harbinger 03 fell, Shirley grabbed his legs and swung him into the counter.
What unnerved Adam most was the silence.
No grunts.
No cries.
No exertion.
The violence inhumane.
But to Adam, they were inhuman.
Their eyes inhumanly cold, focused as they traded blows.
Their stare unblinking as they strived to end the another.
Their movement, synchronised.
Their blows, a cacophony of thuds against flesh.
But they fought as they felt no pain.
Two killers moving in perfect, mechanical rhythm.
“Lord—look!” Gideon gasped.
Shirley drove a punch toward the Templar’s jaw.
Harbinger 03 caught it.
In his open palm.
The sound was wrong.
Flesh struck flesh—but beneath it rang the unmistakable note of metal.
Shirley froze.
Recognition flickered across her face.
She drove her knee upward.
Metallic impact.
The Templar did not flinch.
She tore his helm free.
Adam felt cold dread grip his spine.
She knew him.
“…You,” she breathed.
The moment cost her.
Harbinger 03 shoved her back.
Forcefully. Shirley was launched across the concourse.
She smashed into a support column, collapsing it in a cascade of stone and dust.
The airport finally caught up to the commotion.
Alarms screamed.
Civilians fled.
Security finally reacted—voices shouting, weapons raising.
“Weapons free!” Adam barked, dragging himself back onto his feet.
“Fléchette and sabot rounds!”
* * *
The Black Mamba flew on soundlessly.
The cabin hummed in oppressive silence.
They had not spoken since their flight from Aquifer.
Boa had long since quieted down.
Cobra had turned autopilot on.
He was staring out the portside window.
Python was uncharacteristically silent.
Cobra’s phone had been vibrating for the past hour.
He did not pick up.
The buzzing was insistent.
“You are not going to answer that?” Python asked quietly.
Cobra glared at him, then resumed staring out of the window.
The phone stopped vibrating.
Then Python’s phone buzzed.
“Oh man!” he groaned.
But it was not a call.
A message.
“Looks like she switched target.” Python said as he flipped the screen on.
He fell silent.
“What?” Cobra looked over.
Python showed him.
Images.
Spliced into three panels.
Cobra’s eyes widened.
Shirley Tempess.
She in an airport with her luggage.
Her luggage on a stalled conveyor belt.
The FM modulator crackled.
“—we just confirmed a terrorist attack at Hamad International Airport—”
“—rebel faction, desert fighters, rogue element—”
“—reports confirmed Shirley Tempess, EVECorp’s top girl and fashion modelwas seen on-site minutes—”
Cobra banked the Black Mamba.
“Chief?” Python asked cautiously.
Boa sat up.
“Chief,” Python said, “what are you doing?”
“I am going to help her.”
“Chief,” Python cried, “you just met her! For like two seconds!”
“I’m going.” He growled, “I didn’t say you have to follow.”
Python stared at his chief, blinking rapidly.
Then he grinned.
“In for the penny, in for the pound.”
The Black Mamba decloaked.
A rustle.
Python turned around.
Boa was standing behind them.
Her Hyperion Rail Sniper in her hand.
“I’m coming too.” She growled.
Cobra didn’t argue.
* * *
The Harbingers regrouped as armored drones and automatons converged.
The ambush had failed.
They had failed.
Adam Nightblade understood, with sick clarity.
They had not hunted a witch.
They had awakened a peer.
Hamad Security converged rapidly.
Their weapons raised.
The Harbingers drew their guns.
Fléchette and sabot rounds.
“My lord, we cannot fight all of them,” Gideon said softly, “we must withdraw.”
Adam nodded.
“Brother, to me!” he called to Harbinger 03, “you too, Zora!”
Harbinger 03 obeyed, he turned around.
Zora took a look at her commander, then back at the rubble where Shirley Tempess was buried.
“Zora!” Adam said, more emphatically, “withdraw!”
It was then, Shirley Tempess dug herself out from the rubble.
Powder-covered.
Bruised.
Clothes torn.
Very much alive.
“The Harlot! We must kill her!” Zora shrieked. “We must kill the Harlot!”
“No, Zora!” Adam shouted, “I said withdraw!”
But his words did not reach her.
She was beyond reason.
Bloodlust drowning reason.
Her Electron Mace ignited with a shriek of ozone as she swung with full zeal.
Shirley Tempess regarded her with her cold eyes.
She did not dodge.
She caught the mace mid-swing, bare-handed.
She stopped the mace dead.
Zora’s eyes went wide.
Shirley Tempess punched her.
Zora’s helmet saved her face from becoming a pulp.
But the force of Shirley’s blow left her neck broken at a sickening angle.
Zora fell to the floor whimpered.
“With me!” Adam called to Harbinger 03.
Gideon instinctively offered covering fire but opening up on the security forces.
He abandoned his cover, his brother beside him.
Zora flopped about, alive only because her armor’s life-support refused to let her die.
Coughing blood, she couldn’t move.
Shirley Tempess stood over Zora, she regarded her fist.
As though it betrayed her.
She strode toward the downed Zora.
She raised her foot.
Ready to crush the woman’s face.
Harbinger 03 slammed into her from the side.
A full-body tackle that sent both of them skidding across the shattered marble.
They hit the ground hard, a thunderous impact that cracked tiles.
Shirley snapped her legs upward.
03 dampened the blow by catching her knees across his elbow.
He pinned both her legs to the side.
Shirley Tempess lashed out with her fists.
03 pinned her arms over her head.
Not for the first time of the night that Adam cannot comprehend how his brother could intercept her blows.
But he also seems reluctant to hit her.
His brother merely defended; blocking and deflecting her punches and kicks.
But Shirley Tempess lashed out, she coiled her legs and kicked out.
The blow caught 03 across his chest, lifting him up and casting him back.
He sailed through the air, cartwheeling through the air before slamming into the .
Adam roared and charged, swinging his mace.
Shirley pivoted and deflected the blow with a backhand slap, her body hardly exerting any strain.
Even the prodigious strength of Adam Nightblade made no difference.
But he never intended to beat her with the mace.
His strike was a mere feign.
He fired his shotgun.
Point-blank.
Shirley crisscrossed her arms in front of her.
The Fléchette round - tungsten-forged darts encased within an explosive shotgun case - caught the EVECorp Enforcer dead-on.
The round ripped into her.
Shredding her clothes, her arms and her face.
Shirley Tempess was blown away by the powerful weapon, her chest and face shredded.
But Adam did not press his advantage, he instead turned to Zora and activated the combat-stim and regen-med system built into her armor.
The woman gasped as the drug flooded her system, her life-support system kicked-in.
03 had returned to his side.
Adam started to drag her away.
The security forces were now upon them.
“Covering fire!” Adam cried.
Gideon and 03 brought up their machine-gun and opened fire, raking the incoming security forces.
The security forces, in their haste and desperation, returned fired indiscriminately.
The civilians, ground and flight crew, in their haste to flee, was caught in the crossfire between the Harbingers and airport security.
High-powered rounds tore through unaugmented bodies.
Shredded, civilians dropped in bloody heaps.
Masonry shattered.
The glass dome overhead fractured,
The desert wind roared through the wounds in the structure.
Shouts of orders were drowned by gunfire.
Screams rose beneath the roar.
Cries of help.
Screams of pain.
Children crying.
The security forces ducked behind what little cover.
Orders were shouted into comms.
Requesting EMT.
Requesting reinforcement.
Blood and sand filled the air.
Sirens blared.
From hangars and quarters came reinforcement.
Military-grade augments, riot drones, armored automatons.
Even a couple of security walkers for riot suppression and crowd control.
Amidst the chaos, Adam and his Templars began to withdraw.
For the briefest moment, Adam took heart—
he had struck a blow to the invincible EVECorp.
He had slain Shirley Tempess.
But then she abruptly sat up.
Adam tripped over himself as he beheld Shirley Tempess.
Her face torn open.
Ribbons of flesh dangling from her skull.
Her face-plate.
Contoured to human dimensions.
A face wrought of interconnected, seamless, segmented plates.
Chrome.
Black Fléchette darts jutted out of her mangled flesh as macabre, burnt bones from her forearms and chest.
But most chilling of all, as Adam looked on in horror, he saw the gaping wound in her chest.
Beneath the blood and shredded flesh, was a cybernetic frame.
A gleaming core
She stood.
Unperturbed.
Expressionless.
Her eye on the torn side of her side glowed a brilliant blue.
“Gods above…” Gideon breathed as he joined Adam.
“What manner of abomination is this?”
Adam did not reply.
He merely watched on, mesmerised.
“Synthforged…” Adam whispered.
“My lord,” Gideon cried as he shook Adam out of his stupor.
“Synthforged?” Gideon said, looking at Shirley Tempess.
The Templar Brotherhood had fought EVECorp’s automatons before.
Synthforged, the Church had named them.
Artificial lifeforms. Cybernetic organisms. Transhuman.
“That is no Synthforged, my lord,” Gideon insisted, “no Synthforged was as fast and strong as she is.”
Adam shook his head.
“I’ve heard rumors,” he whispered, “of EVECorp’s next-gen Synthforged.
Near perfect human mimicry, kept not in cyrovaults, walked freely among us.
“I’ve just never realized how far they have come.”
Shirley turned her gaze to them then.
“Synthforged or otherwise,” Gideon remarked, “we must withdraw, lord”
Adam did not argue with a sound tactical withdrawal.
Shirley Tempess regarded them a moment longer before she tried to uncross her arms.
The Fléchette had nailed her forearms together.
She regarded the offending spikes before she tried forcibly harder.
A wrenching groan of steel.
The Fléchette darts snapped.
A sickening tear of flesh.
Muscles and shredded flesh peeled away in a sickening tear.
Gideon looked away as Adam winced visibly.
Tatters of flesh still impaled upon the Fréchette darts.
But the face of Shirley Tempess betrayed no pain.
She took a step forward.
Adam and Gideon dragged Zora behind the retail row.
The airport security turned to her.
A hulking combat-walker stepped through the shattered glass wall.
It fixated on her, its quad-miniguns cycling up.
Its threat assessment swapped its firing solution.
Shirley Tempess saw the red targeting glow.
Sabot rounds.
She turned and ran.
The walker opened fire.
High-velocity tungsten rounds chewed through the masonry, pulverizing marble and spraying stone shrapnel.
Shirley dove behind a check-in counter as the machine swept the concourse in a firestorm.
“Withdraw,” Adam snarled.
* * *
The Harbingers pulled the woman she injured behind the retail row.
There they administered emergency aid as one of them keep her neck straight.
Shirley remained still behind the counter even as firepower pummelled the marblework.
Her preysight scrolled live vitals and diagnostics.
Heartrate, psychological, pulse.
A spectrum of data.
The female Harbinger was healing.
Bones knitting and tissues regenerating.
Tempess. What’s going on?
Kurt’s voice crackled over the in-built comms.
I need backup, she replied curtly, voicelessly.
Ten minutes.
Hurry.
Five minutes.
She heard whirring and clicking.
The security-walker was switching to its howitzer.
Intending to flush her out.
A rail-shot tore through the air like thunder.
Was that you? Shirley asked.
No. Illeana replied.
Security forces shouted in panic as the Hyperion rail obliterated the walker’s howitzer, sending molten shrapnel in a blossom of molten metal.
The combat-walker staggered; its sensors fried.
Gunfire faltered.
A whistle.
Shrill. Sharp. Clear.
Shirley risked a peek in the direction of the call.
Her luggage sailing through the air.
The titanium case slammed onto the floor.
Near her, just beyond her reach behind cover.
She risked another glance.
A man by the door.
Shirley sprinted.
Bullets stitched the ground around her—security forces and Templars alike taking desperate shots.
Shirley did not care.
She grabbed her luggage and rolled back within cover.
She didn’t bother with the combination lock.
She ripped the case open with brute force, ripping the halves apart.
She donned her trenchcoat.
She drew her handcannons.
Two-feet smoothbore barrels.
Nine-round clips of white and black.
Avalon, pristine white, elegant, divine.
Latet, nōn perit.
35mm anti-personnel liquid mercury death-blossom rounds
Caliburn, midnight-black, matte, predatory.
35mm depleted Astrarium sabot rounds.
Iūs. Ferrum. Terminus Est
Both custom-forged by Walter Armalite of Black Armalite Inc.
She slid the clips into place and took aim.
* * *
“My lord!” Gideon called out.
Adam dodged instinctively as Shirley Tempess fired.
What weapons are those?!
The round detonated with a shower of spark behind them.
“My lord, we must go!” Gideon said.
He turned to 03. “Brother, covering fire!”
Shirley raised her black-iron and fired.
The explosive shot punched through their cover.
It missed Adam by a hairbreadth.
It blew a crater in the display cases they were taking cover behind.
Adam dragged Zora away, frantically.
No amount of cover will stop those.
He saw Shirley Tempess sighting down her ivory weapon.
Her shot shredded Gideon’s rifle.
Adam cursed as he grabbed the scruff of Zora’s neck.
Dragging her frantically behind the nearest circular support column.
Shirley fired her weapon.
The first-round tore into the support column, ripping a fist-sized chunk of the masonry.
The EVECorp Enforcer stood up briskly.
Her in-built nanites already begun repairing the most grievous of her wounds.
The guns in her hand spoke with authority.
“Brother, we need time,” Adam snapped as he pulled Zora into cover.
Harbinger Three nodded.
He rose and opened fire with his rifle.
Disciplined bursts, covering their retreat.
Shirley calmly reloaded.
She stepped forward, each stride measured, precise.
Shrugging off assault rounds hammering into her torso.
Her trenchcoat. Adam cursed inwardly.
Reinforced Kevlar and synthweave that curved impacting shots.
All pretence of humanity gone.
“Fall back,” Adam hissed.
If ever one of them took a round from those guns.
No surgery, no fleshcraft, no prayer would save them.
Shirley Tempess’s next shot found 03’s helmet.
Splitting his helm.
03 staggered back, but unharmed.
“My lord,” Zora whispered, “our brother—”
The shot marred his forehead.
Chrome.
“No,” Adam whispered in disbelief.
“He is one of them! A False One.” Gideon gasped, “Like her, Synthforged.”
“No—” Adam protested weakly.
“We must leave him,” Gideon said with finality, “he is not human.”
“He is my brother!” Adam snapped.
* * *
Harbinger 03 fired his weapon.
Shirley fired Avalon.
03 shrugged off the anti-personnel round that would pulped a man’s organ.
He tanked the shots.
Buying his brothers seconds.
Buying their lives.
Avalon clicked empty.
Shirley slid the ivory clip out as she switched to Caliburn.
03 fired as she fired.
His shot grazed her barrel, deflecting her shot.
Shirley reloaded Avalon without looking.
She fired, advancing.
03 took the shots on his elbows and arms.
The rounds thudded into his armor and desert shroud with seemingly little damage.
Kurt, I found him.
Who?
X.
One of the Harbingers.
I’m bringing him in.
Bag him and tag him, Huntress, I want him alive.
Shirley did not reply.
The Harbingers behind him withdrew.
Shirley switched targets.
She raised Caliburn.
X surged forward.
He fired another shot in an attempt to deflect her firing trajectory.
But Shirley had her guns in an iron grip.
They didn’t deviate even as his round found their mark.
Shirley unloaded Avalon’s entire clip into X’s abdomen in rapid succession.
Spent shells clipped rapidly from the ejection chamber.
The salvo staggered him back.
The ping of spent casings.
Avalon clicked empty.
X’s armor was smoking, glowing hot from the onslaught.
The scent of burnt flesh.
He arrested his stumble with an arm on the counter.
Shirley fired Caliburn.
Once.
The sabot round slammed into the superheated armor.
Piercing him.
Ramming through him in a shower of spark and torn circuitry.
X staggered back
A look of disbelief.
Her second round slammed into his thigh.
The third his forearm.
I want him alive, Tempess.
Kurt’s voice.
“You’ll live.” Shirley growled as she holstered her handcannons in one fluid motion.
She surged forward.
X drew his katana.
Swordsheath.
A flash.
Shirley took one stride.
She slid under the arc of steel.
A wisp of severed hair.
Shirley stepped close, closing the breadth in less than a heartbeat.
Into the deadzone of his arcing blade.
X tried to recover, but she was faster.
She buried her fist deep in his gut.
X doubled over, a metallic rasp escaping him.
Shirley clasped both hands together, raised them overhead and brought them down in a hammer strike across his back.
X crashed to the floor, the marble tiles cracking under the impact.
She straddled him without hesitation and reached behind her.
She pulled free the neural disruptor, its capacitors whirring to life.
The Persuadertron.
X twisted; he knew what that gun would do to him.
He reacted with blinding speed.
Faster than human reflex allowed.
His hand snapped up, swatting the weapon aside.
Shirley slammed a fist across his jaw, a jarring punch.
They grappled.
Two artificial beings, locked in a violent tangle of limbs and leverage.
They exchanged and parried blows.
Hers were fluid, crisp and aiming to incapacitate.
His were efficient, cold and attempting to escape.
But he never struck her.
Shirley snaked an arm around X’s neck, locking him in a chokehold.
She scissored her legs around his waist, pinning him beneath her with machine precision.
Her grip tightened.
A vise of chrome and synthetic muscle fiber-bundle.
X drove his elbow into her.
But he had no leverage.
Shirley tightened her chokehold around X, her legs locked like steel bands around his waist.
Bullets tore through the concourse, ricocheting off marble and shattered columns, but she didn’t flinch.
The neural disruptor lay a few meters away, skittered across the floor from X’s earlier swipe.
Just out of reach.
Shirley snarled, she could not spare one arm.
X was too strong.
It took all of her strength to hold him down.
Around them, airport security forces regrouped, advancing cautiously with rifles raised.
Shirley glanced up, emotions suppressed behind torn flesh and gleaming metal.
I have him.
Adam Nightblade loomed over her.
* * *
He stood over the two struggling Synthforged.
Shirley Tempess held 03 before her.
Adam reached for his weapon.
The Black Sword.
Shirley Tempess brought her midnight-black gun up and fired.
The runes flared to life.
Adam blocked the shot upon his vambrace.
The sabot round shattered upon his glowing armor.
Her eyes flickered with a sliver of surprise.
His hand closed around the greatsword across his back.
“Darken the world, Twilight.”
She fired again.
He swung.
His blade trailing ash and collapsing light.
Its edge rippling the air.
Twilight passed through the sabot round —
—and through Shirley Tempess’s hand.
Adam grabbed 03 and hauled him to his feet.
His eyes fixed upon the Shirley.
His grip tightened.
His intent clear.
X laid a palm on him, shaking his head.
Adam turned with X in tow and withdrew.
* * *
The halves of her hand and Caliburn fell heavily to the floor.
Shirley reached for it.
Her grip slackened.
X deftly kicked the midnight-black gun away before she can retrieve it.
Adam hauled him to his feet.
Shirley regarded the cleanly-sheared stump where her hand was.
She drew Avalon.
The empty cartridge slid out.
Adam and X started to walk away.
She upended the gun and slid a fresh clip in.
She stood up.
She took aim.
X turned and blocked the shots upon his vambrace.
She fired again
A block.
Another.
A deflection.
Adam swept an arc in the air with his Black Sword.
A wall of ash and twilight her preysight cannot penetrate.
She fired anyway.
Her shots drowned in the distortion.
Avalon clicked empty.
Shirley stopped.
Hamad Security shouted to her to drop her weapon.
Shirley turned towards them.
One of the guards cried out at her chrome.
They opened fire.
Her black trenchcoat deflected the small-arms fire.
A heavy stomp.
Heavy machine guns spooling up.
The damaged security walker’s heavy guns joined the salvo.
The high-calibre rounds shredded her body and legs.
Shirley vaulted over the counter and dropped back into cover behind the marble counter.
Her legs twitched and gave way.
She slid down as the storm of steel stripped the masonry behind her.
Synthetic fluid pooled beneath her, intermingled with cybernetic-vitae leaking from her torso.
Damage diagnostics and battle assessment flashed across her sight.
Her legs groaned with metallic strain as she tried to move them.
Avalon dropped heavily to the floor.
Shirley turned her head left.
Men in desert shroud emerged from a maintenance duct.
They slid the panel away and beckoned to the Harbingers.
The two Harbingers half-dragged and half-carried the injured woman in.
She saw X looked her way.
Once.
Then he followed his brothers into darkness.
Shirley looked to her right.
She saw a second security walker advancing down to adjacent concourse to flank her.
She attempted to rise.
Her legs won’t support her weight.
She looked around.
Searching.
Caliburn.
The midnight-black gun lay to her right, in the open.
Out of her reach.
Shirley reached for it.
She keeled over.
She crawled.
The advancing security walker assessed the escalating threat.
Its gun slid out of its housing.
Kurt.
I’m here.
* * *
I’m here.
The glass panel to the left of the walker shattered.
An imploding storm of glass and steel grille.
Kurt Blade.
Right on time.
On a hypercycle.
In the air.
Next to the towering walker.
He rode the hoverbike into the security walker’s front leg.
Metal met steel.
A jet engine smashing into a steel pylon.
The walker staggered.
The hypercycle crumpled.
Its engine core ruptured.
Kurt was thrown clear.
A Hyperion Rail round detonated against its back leg.
Kurt’s hand closed around the walker’s railing.
Another rail round drove itself into the walker chassis.
The walker staggered, its chassis detonated, sparks and hydraulic fluid spraying.
From the adjacent rooftop, a second Hyperion rail-shot split the air.
The shot shattered the glass to the right of the walker.
A blossom of fire and shattered circuitry.
Pinpoint bursts that shredded security armor and sent the security personnel diving for cover.
Who called backup? Illeana asked.
We have backup? Shirley returned.
Female, sniper. Trajectory came from the adjacent terminal.
Your secret admirer.
The walker kept advancing.
Its guns cycling up.
The next Hyperion round shattered the guns on its right.
A shadow.
A shimmer.
A mirage of the desert.
A shape dropped from the upper mezzanine with the grace of a panther, landing behind a fallen kiosk.
Silent.
Ghost-like.
He emerged from his cloaking.
Shirley turned to regard him warily.
A patch on his shoulder.
An insignia. A motif. A callsign.
A cobra.
Its hood flaring.
He said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
With a deft flick of his foot, he sent Caliburn sliding across the floor into her outstretched hand.
Shirley snatched it mid-slide with a fluid motion, eyes blazing.
Friend of yours? Illeana’s voice crackled over the comms.
He’s with you? Kurt asked.
I thought he’s with you. Shirley replied curtly.
Cute. Illeana said.
Cocking Caliburn, Shirley fired.
The sabot round ripped into the walker.
Detonated.
The housing of its remaining gun destroyed.
Disarmed.
Kurt clambered up the walker.
He took a firm grip of an overhead hatch upon the walker’s back.
He tore the hatch free.
Kurt reached for the satchel he was carrying.
He tore the satchel apart, revealing a thermal charge.
He mag-locked and armed the bomb.
An explosion.
The core of the walker was hollowed out.
The walker collapsed in a heap.
Twisted metal and molten slag.
Kurt strode off the destroyed walker.
His trenchcoat in tatters.
His hand chrome.
Two more Hyperion rounds took out the damaged walker with the security forces.
He approached Shirley, sitting in a pool of her own fluid.
Gunfire pinging off his trenchcoat.
“You alright, Tempess?” he asked.
She looked up.
“I’ll live.”
* * *
Kurt turned to the security forces.
His eyes cold.
They had their guns trained on him.
“Surrender,” the captain called, “you are surrounded.”
Kurt cast his sight beyond the captain.
Armored personnel carriers, heavy walkers, advanced armor columns.
He raised a hand, palm outwards.
“Stand down,” he said, “we are EVECorp.”
“We know who you are, Enforcer.” The captain returned, “you are trespassing in the Free City of Qatar.”
“Stand down.”
Kurt’s hand twitched.
We can’t shoot our way out of this one, boss.
He took one glance at Shirley.
Then a booming voice shattered the night skies.
Attention.
Attention, Free City of Doha.
The security forces turned.
To the sky.
An angular shape.
A black silhouette.
A knife in the sky.
This is Admiral Mercer of the ESS Supercarrier Ascendant Prime. EVECorp Seventh Fleet.
The Supercarrier materialised as it decloaked.
Its fighters deployed; a nest of bats roused.
They detached from their scaffolds, nosediving before levelling out.
Whispers, Switchblades, VTOL Gunships.
You are engaging in unsanctioned military action against EVECorp’s personnel.
The massive guns of the Ascendant Prime flared to life, pulsing with power.
I hereby invoke Article of Concessions 2067, stand down and cease all hostilities.
The captain looked to his second-in-command.
His men looked to him.
Beyond the terminal, the reinforcement had stopped their advance.
“Stand down!” he said.
Prepare to receive our arrival.
Author’s Note — End of Act I
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