Loyalty Is Its Own Reward

Alisanne Chavagneux de Versailles awoke in the silence of her room, roused from her light slumber by the faint whisper of a breeze making itself known through the opened double-arched doors leading to her private balcony.  The Duchess took a moment to consider the oddity of this development, her Nova Terran eyes adjusting to the faint permanence of the imperial capital world’s crimson lighting within the few microseconds it took her gene-enhanced mind to slough off the REM-induced delirium of deep slumber.  The interior of the chamber, at first glance, was unchanged; fine silks and priceless antiquities in the form of preserved material furniture from pre-unification adorning the palatial interior of her private apartments in a demonstration of personal wealth that, when measured in some notion of worth, could have afforded her the right to purchase a small continent.

Family portraits subtly preserved by localised stasis fields sat undisturbed upon their designated places in the now-rare ancient augustan-patterned walls of the tower residence’s interior, and other than the odd state of her opened doors, there seemed to be nothing amiss of note.  In point of fact, it was not until she took the time to truly consider the implications of her doors being opened - a fact that should have, in all truth, been impossible given traffic restrictions and altitude - that she began to wonder as to the nature of the culprit that might have perpetrated such a breach.  Once again her eyes, a faintly luminescent lavender in the red-lit night of Nova Terran, roamed the interior as she considered the possibilities - and her manicured hand reached for the ARES pistol hidden in a compartment of her bed’s headboard.

“That will not serve you,” a voice intoned from the seemingly empty room, clear and crisp in its delivery, and possessed of a gene-tailored elegance that made it sound nearly implausible in the perfection of its ancient Nova Terran articulation.

Alisanne paused at the sound of the undeniably male voice, her twin hearts kicking up in the speed of their alternating rhythm as she once more searched for the source.  “Who intrudes upon my chambers?”  She demanded in a voice far more controlled than her true state might imply, donning the imperious tones of Imperial Nobility.  “Declare yourself, that I know what name to mark when I--!”

“Your posturing offers you nothing in this instance, Duchess.”  The voice responded with eerie calm, forcing her to the silence with the sheer power of its articulated perfection.

The air before her bed distorted a moment later, rippling and peeling away to disengage an active cloaking field.  As it did, golden armour caught the light in a reflection of unique and identifying imperial finery, plated precious metals overlaid upon what she knew beyond doubt to be an improved neutronium core layer: Accentuated by swirls and spirals of ancient text rooted in dead Terra itself.  A veritable treasure trove of historical remnant inscribed with agonising, pain-staking detail upon the vision of sapient near-perfection manifested before her in the persistent illumination of the imperial capital world.

“Warden,” she breathed despite herself, staring at the near nine and a half foot armoured figure with a mix of shock and reactive awe, noting one of the Emperor’s personal Knights with an indoctrinated reverence she had come to loathe.  “Of course.”  The words were calmer now, blessed with the settling calm often experienced in the moments of revelation that preceded inevitable and inexorable death.  Even still, she found herself admiring the sheer beauty of the man before her: A specimen rendered to perfectly capture the fair skin and dark hair prominent in a sub-sect of Nova Terran phenotypes, his jawline and features painstakingly gene-tailored to somehow manage to exemplify the very core of one of the myriad sub-cultures of the Nova Terran Empire - tracing back to its Terran roots - in both appearance and speech patterns.

“Duchess Alissane Chavagneux de Versailles, you have been found guilty of High Treason against His Imperial Majesty, The Emperor.  There is but one sentence for such affront.”  The words were delivered absent anger or malice, spoken with the calm, collected tones of a too-perfect being delivering news as one might comment on a weather event of little interest - polite, pointed, but lacking in any significance.  It galled her to the bone to be so easily discarded, to have her station and importance so readily mocked.

“For what crime, Warden?”  The Duchess demanded, letting the precious true-silk of the covers fall down as she lifted herself into a sitting position, ignoring her nudity as easily as the Warden seemed to.  “I have done nothing to warrant--!”

“Your efforts to imitate His Knights’ fabrication processes on the moons of Freya are enough, but did not concern Him, neither did the paltry force of half-successful gene-bred mutant clones you call an army garrisoned in the bowels of your family’s foundries on the homeworld.  Neither these nor the renegade fleet you have managed to patch together in the Dead Zone stand as impediment to His Imperial Majesty.”  The words were like hammer blows as they were spoken, eroding her ability to respond momentarily as the Warden spoke of her work with such calm, dismissive disinterest - as if her efforts were little more than the vain strugglings of a webbed fly, desperate to escape an inevitable and predetermined doom.

“Your attempts at sedition and terrorist funding in Signatory territory hold no threat to the Pax Imperialis, Duchess.  No, it was for another crime that you are found wanting.”

“I... What crime is that, Warden?”  The Duchess asked, a hateful note of defeat entering her gene-tailored voice in spite of her best efforts to the contrary.

“Your machines drained a large body of water on one of the prospect Colonies within the Imperium’s borders.  That liquid was required for the terraforming efforts to be conducted on the planet, and will set back its progress by nearly twelve percent.”

Alisanne stared at the Warden in momentary, stunned disbelief.  Water?  She was being sentenced to die over water?  “You... You can’t be serious,” she said in something approximating staggered miscomprehension.  “I am being declared a traitor for stealing water?”

“The Emperor will suffer no impediments to His vision, Duchess.  Your other forays into ‘rebellion’ were little more than the ignorable mewlings of a disgruntled child.”  The Warden said with calm detachment, as if explaining something that should have been entirely self-evident from the first.  “They held no more concern for Him than a speck of dust might concern a sanitisation laser.  This, however, is a direct contravention of His imperative; and is unconscionable.”

The Duchess sat in stunned silence for another four alternating heartbeats, before speaking again, this time with some of the disgust and bitterness at her core welling up - and much to her anger and shame, no small amount of her deeply buried fear.  “You cannot fail to see the insanity in this,” she hissed.  “He is no longer what He was!  He is a mistake, an aberration, a creature not of this realm left to wander unchecked and uncontained, leading us all on some mad crusade--!”

“Pleading will not alter the outcome,” the Warden said simply.  “Neither will slandering our Emperor help your case, even if it could.”

“Do you even know what manner of creature it is you serve, Warden!?”

“He is the Master of All.  That is enough.”

“I could give you riches beyond your wildest--!”

“Loyalty is its own reward,” the Warden replied without hesitation.

Alisanne stared for a moment, tracing the Warden’s too-perfect facial structure with her eyes.  “I could sound the alarms.”

“That would be very unwise,” the golden-armoured warrior said calmly.

“... Did you kill my family?”  Alisanne asked after a moment’s thought, voice remarkably steady despite her fear.

“All complicit parties have been neutralised.”

“Then my son...?”

“He yet lives,” the Warden said.

“Please,” she said at last, hating herself all the more for the note of desperation in her voice.  “Spare him.  He’s a child; barely a year old, surely he is innocent in this.”

“We will see.  He may yet serve the Emperor.”

The Duchess’ hearts skipped a beat, and her breath hitched.  “Please, not the Legions, I couldn’t bear--!”

“He is too young for the Legions.  There is another path for him to walk.”

The Duchess stared at the Warden, and felt her body notably relax.  “The Aegis?”

“If he survives,” the Warden responded simply.

The Duchess smiled despite herself.  “He will survive.”  She looked back to the Warden then, and settled herself back against the bedhead, regarding him with discerning lavender eyes.  “That is some small comfort, at least.”

The Warden lifted his Vigilus-pattern plasma halberd as she said this, smoothly lifting it to point what she knew to be the barrel of a hyper-accelerated firing chamber built into the weapon directly at her.  “Good evening, Duchess Versailles, and farewell.”

The Duchess fixed her eyes unblinkingly on the faint metallic sheen of the inside of the ARES barrel, sat beneath the head of the halberd.  “La liberté ou la mort, Warden.”

The gunshot echoed into the night.