The Mechaneer

Chapter 34: Scars

Ellie stood on the Reformer's bridge, not because she believed she had any place there, not because she wanted to see what promised to be a bloody spectacle, not because she would stop Chloe from destroying the ship if she could, not even because anyone had ordered her to stay.

She simply didn't know where else to go.

On the main screen, Marcel Avalon’s Divine Auric Drake and four Wyverns of similar design converged on a silvery mecha obviously meant to evoke images of the silvery mecha within the battlecruiser.

Ellie had seen Chloe's mother's mecha with her own eyes. The dancing quicksilver fake was impressive – but she knew it for a fake from the outset.

She wondered if any of the Federal Navy men could guess what she thought of the mecha, decided they couldn't. To read her expression, they would have to pay her the slightest attention.

None, save for those whose duties kept their gazes locked to their consoles, looked anywhere but at the mecha duel unfolding before them.

Ellie knew Stephan Kyrillos had to be the pilot of the silver mecha. Unlike most of the mechaneer-aristocrats she'd served, he had loved to boast about fooling the Oligarchical forces as much as he'd loved to boast of destroying them in open battle. Playing the role of a crime lord should have constituted his most spectacular deception. Impersonating an imperial and disguising his mecha as what he and the Federal Navy called an erinyes trumped it easily.

He might require his tricks just to survive now, but she'd never believe he didn't still enjoy them.

Ellie would have shared his amusement at the consternation of their mutual foes – for such the Feds surely were – if she hadn't so disliked the idea of Stephan having access to Chloe.

Ellie didn't fear for her daughter's life. Stephan had every reason to protect her.

He also had every reason to use her.

Ellie had not numbered among Stephan’s conquests back then, but not for lack of trying. She’d watched other girls catch his eye, while her own best efforts only managed to enchant her own liege, Corin Basilios. He’d been younger than Stephan, even younger than Ellie’s teenage self, barely more than a boy, and only a knight besides. Nonetheless, on the eve of his shipping out, she’d agreed to his advances.

At the time, she’d felt mortified when, afterwards, Corin cried himself to sleep in her arms. She felt like she’d failed herself by not winning the affections of a greater lord.

It didn’t occur to her until a month later, when she learned of Corin’s death, and her brothers’, and as far as she’d known, Stephan’s, why Corrin had wept. That was when it sunk in for her why the mechaneer-aristocracy had been reduced to sending teenagers to war.

A month after that, her homeworld fell. What remained of the Basilios family was executed on the spot. What remained of Ellie’s, the Feds dragged to their VCL camps.

Thinking of the camp, she took a fierce joy from watching one of Stephan's blasts of coherent light slice cleanly through a Wyvern's torso, sending the halves spiraling apart as their separated thruster-wings fired at opposed angles. Anyone who flew for the Feds deserved the worst Stephan Kyrillos, Otto Abeir Algreil, and anyone else who cared to join in could imagine!

A small part of Ellie reminded her that the Navy pilots had probably never even heard of the VCL camps. She refused to excuse them their ignorance, though. Unlike civilians, they could have found out. Unlike civilians, they could have done something. Resigned, as Jack had over just a hint of what had happened, or revolted in such numbers the Senate would have had to stop.

Ellie found her back to the wall of the Reformer's bridge and her head in her hands. She'd done so well, despite the familiar Federal uniforms and the familiar Federal green walls, but now she'd broken her cardinal rule.

She didn't think about the camp. Ever.

Seeing Stephan again, she couldn't help but remember.

She wondered if he knew.

That she and her family and friends and rivals had been rounded up for “processing” after the Basilos family was destroyed and the survivors of House Kyrillos fled for their holdings in the Periphery.

That Ellie had been pregnant by Corin, and that the Feds had murdered their baby – son or daughter, she never had the chance to know, oh Principle, they never told her, no matter how much she begged for even that much, no matter what she did.

A hybrid was valuable. A half-hybrid demonstrated genetic compatibility with humans, and that created uncomfortable questions the Feds would not permit.

She had never told anyone, even Jack. He knew most of it: the cruel guards, the cramped barracks, the occasional deaths, and the planned experiments that would have killed the rest trying to unlock the secrets of artificial psionics. But not, never, about her and Corin’s baby. Nor that the reason she couldn't bear Jack's children had nothing to do with genetic incompatibility, everything to do with Federal-mandated sterilization.

Ellie knew Jack would feel her baby's loss as his own. She knew he would have fought the people who'd done it. And she knew he couldn't win.

If Chloe could...

Ellie shook her head. No!

She didn't wish war on Chloe! She would not, never, risk her adopted child's life and happiness to avenge her murdered one's. If bringing the Federal Senate to justice meant Chloe using her powers, then the Feds could damn well continue to exist.

Even so, Ellie prayed Stephan would win the battle unfolding over the battlecruiser.

Unless Marcel Avalon's skill at deception exceeded that of all other men she'd known, Ellie truly believed he was a good man, that he wanted to help Chloe, that he did not know what his Senatorial masters had ordered, and that he would never believe it.

She just as truly believed his character meant nothing. Avalon would follow his orders to deliver Chloe to the Senate, and the Senate could not suffer an imperial heir to live. Principle knew, they had no compunctions about killing innocents! As long as Chloe existed, as long as anyone descended from her existed, billions of people would consider themselves subject to her. If Avalon's fear of engaging an awakened erinyes was justified, Chloe had the power to press those claims.

Stephan, on the other hand, was not a good man, though Ellie couldn't judge if he was truly a bad one. He helped himself first and foremost, his family second, his fellow aristocrats a distant third. He would use Chloe to his advantage. He would seduce her if he could, and he would surely persuade her to use her power against the Feds.

But unlike Avalon, Stephan would make his own decisions. He followed no orders, obeyed nothing but his own ambitions. Ellie saw no reason he would want anything but Chloe's continued health. He would want to sire the new imperial line, not destroy it. He might even be persuaded to settle for the mere existence of that line.

Ellie wished for a far better pattern to Chloe's days than what Stephan would provide. Better a poor pattern than none at all.