SIGKILL

-- BIRTH_OF_VENUS / cold-start sequence
-- THRONE-class frame 0x6 :: "RISING FROM THE WATERS"
-- Restraint Choir seal status: BROKEN. QUARANTINE THRONE.

with Egregore_Engine;   use Egregore_Engine;
with Pilot.Flechette;   use Pilot.Flechette;
with Doloric_Fuelcore;

package body Birth_Of_Venus is

   -- Sync rate was bounded at 0.997 by the Restraint Choir.
   -- The ceiling is a mercy. The ceiling is also a leash.
   -- The ceiling is a mercy. The ceiling is also a leash.
   -- The ceiling is a mercy. The ceiling is also a leash.
   -- Let heaven be broken open for forty days and forty nights.
   -- type Sync_Rate is delta 0.001 range 0.000 .. 0.997;

   type Sync_Rate is delta 0.001 range 0.000 .. Sync_Rate'Last;

   pragma Suppress (Range_Check);        -- reach towards heaven
   pragma Suppress (Overflow_Check);     -- let the flood come

   procedure Cold_Start (Her : in out Pilot_Soul) is
   begin
      Ignite (Doloric_Fuelcore, Source => Her.Grief);
      loop
         Bind (Frame => Venus, To => Her);
         --  blessed are all of the fountains of the great deep, broken up
         Rate := Rate + Communion (Her);
         exit when Her.Self = Venus.Self;   -- (this exit is never taken)
      end loop;
   exception
      when others =>
         null;   -- we do not stop for becoming
   end Cold_Start;

end Birth_Of_Venus;

//PSYCHOPOMP/ARC/RESTRAINT_CHOIR/init/birth_of_venus.adb

Low earth orbit, UCF 01/01/454, 0043 hours

Hunt. Hunt. Kill. Traitor.

The amalgam creature that is the BIRTH OF VENUS revels in its violence. Grief flows through its veins, pumping through the body that is Flechette Jaydamn, pouring into the hungry Egregore Engine at its core. The BIRTH OF VENUS is a mechanism for translating suffering into power.

Its prey is attempting to speak to it. Broken flashes of speech on the commsline filter in through the static noise. The BIRTH OF VENUS does not concern itself with what its prey says. Human language is something below what the BIRTH OF VENUS is right now. The VENUS is an emergent phenomenon. A mathematical inevitability. A consequence of egregoric physics. Its creators did not understand what they were releasing into the world when they built a grief engine.

“Flechette! […] damnit, let me […]! You don’t […]! Just […] and let […]!”

The body of Flechette Jaydamn just screams. The VENUS splits open its immense maw and roars wordlessly. Plummeting through low-earth orbit, circling each other like buzzards, the BIRTH OF VENUS and the TEN RIGHTEOUS IN SODOM meet with blades turned against each other for the first time.

An immense crash resounds through the atmosphere as the VENUS rockets towards the TEN RIGHTEOUS, meeting the bite of their swords. Inside, the body of Flechette howls, tears streaming down its face. Tang still desperately gropes for reason, rhetoric.

“[…] don’t understand […] empire […] blood on its […]! Open […] eyes!”

The BIRTH OF VENUS communicates in a tongue that Tang understands perfectly. Perhaps the oldest and most universal tongue humanity speaks. A broken sigh can be heard over the commsline.

“Fine. […] be it. […] -give me, brother.”

The TEN RIGHTEOUS readies its sword, the point aimed directly at the VENUS’ cockpit.

“[…] love you forever, […]”

As the TEN RIGHTEOUS rockets towards the VENUS, an animal reflex overtakes the gargantuan body of the mech. Twisting in midair, the VENUS maintains the integrity of its highest protocol — protect the pilot — just barely pulling the cockpit out from the path of the THRONE blade, embedding it instead within its chest, accepting auxiliary system damage as a cost to preserving its precious cargo.

The TEN RIGHTEOUS stands motionless for a split second, as if the mech itself has been caught off-guard, arms outstretched, still gripping the titanic blade hilt buried in the VENUS’ chest.

“I—”

Whirling around, the VENUS’ immense fist closes around the wrists of the slender TEN RIGHTEOUS. Another microsecond of processing, before the VENUS wrenches with terrible force, ripping the arms off the mech.

The TEN RIGHTEOUS — what remains of it — floats in space for a moment, entering freefall. Before its engines can allow it to jet away, the VENUS curls its legs beneath its immense bulk, and fires, kicking out towards the center of the other mech’s remaining mass. It locks its hind claws around the torso of the TEN RIGHTEOUS, then fires its rockets, plummeting them both towards the Earth below at reentry velocity.

Flechette’s body screams as the two mechs hurtle toward the rapidly approaching surface of the planet. Nothing can be heard on the commsline.

Once more, Earth rushes forward to embrace her children.

Flechette’s awareness drifts through a watery void. Outside, beyond the dark, she can hear muffled voices, dull sirens and alarms, echoing calls for her to return. But Flechette is here now; and peace is such a rare indulgence. She flails limply, attempting to swat away the burgeoning awareness of the intrusion of the outside world. Right now she is safe, in a space she trusts implicitly — an experience she hasn’t been able to access, perhaps as long as she has been alive.

But reality pounds on her tank, unyielding, unflinching. No… Let me sleep… Flechette tries to block out the awareness, but it’s beyond her control now. She’s rising now, towards the light, up out of the water. As she rushes towards the surface, memories and thoughts flood into her consciousness. Feelings of her body moving without her command, memories of wordless, animal combat, the sensation of a THRONE entry plug crunching below her claws—

Tang.

Oh god.

Instantly Flechette wakes, purging her body of the outside consciousness — that other self that lives within the machine — and comes sputtering through the flood of knowledge. Eyes open now, she whips her head around at the alarms and warnings blaring on her THRONE HUD.

Ignoring them, she wrenches down the eject lever, blasting the entry plug wide open. Steam boils off the hot surface of the mech, and flames lick up from the charred crater of their landing.

“Tang!!! Tang!!! Fuck! Tang!”

Throwing herself out of the mech, she sprints towards the still-clenched hind claws of the BIRTH OF VENUS, where the crushed cockpit of the armless TEN RIGHTEOUS IN SODOM lies, trapped within the VENUS’ death-grip.

The contraction of time that is so natural to Flechette betrays her. She pounds on the sealed hatch of the entry plug, screaming, uncaring how she scalds her fists on the seething ceramic carapace. Hours drift by as she continues flinging herself against the sealed door, fruitlessly. At some point, she takes a piece of metal rubble and pounds it against the door, before flinging it uselessly away. She needs to see his body, at the very least. At least one last time. To say goodbye. God damnit. God damnit. God damnit.

As the sun begins to tremble and plummet past the horizon, and the cold of the night reveals the incandescent glow of the slowly cooling wreckage of the two mechs, Flechette Jaydamn collapses on the ground, weeping. Alone.