Ekological Chimera
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Chapter 16 - Alea iacta est 2
🕑 Added 2024-09-18 19:23:27 +0000 UTCThe Custodian stood in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by the screams of the wounded and dying.
Despite the bloodshed in which she participated, her robes were unmarred. In her hands she held a long Terran weapon, examining it.
The best comparison she could make was to a crossbow. A very powerful, rapid firing one. Of course, unlike a crossbow, she had no idea how it worked.
Fortunately, she’d have time to learn.
Soon her knights would have the surviving Terrans subdued. Justice would be dispensed and then Serana could see if she could not figure out some of the Terran technology.
Really, Serana felt almost disappointed.
Both the Colonel and the new, now dead, officer had been quite dismissive of Eternity’s power. Though the latter had been more insulting than dismissive. Not that he had had any time to regret it.
Like always, their arrogance proved unwarranted when push actually came to shove. They were helpless in front of Eternity's power.
Their soldiers massacred, their flying machines crushed and their starships crippled, one gone entirely.
She cast a look upwards, watching the two remaining, presumably disabled, star ships.
That was another decision she would have to make soon.
Of the two ships that had attacked her, one had exploded instantly when she retaliated, while the other started drifting.
The survivors on it had to be punished. Serana could destroy it easily, but felt reluctant.
Shouts in a foreign tongue brought her out of her contemplations.
“You can’t do that! We surrendered!” One of the Terran soldiers screamed, presumably at the nearby Temple Knight putting a dying Terran out of his misery.
Serana frowned. She had no idea what the words meant, but she could guess.
The knight, noticing her frowning gaze, quickly approached the still-shouting soldier and silenced him with a backhand.
A rather pointless, if appreciated, gesture, considering the still substantial noise permeating the battlefield.
The knight moved on with a salute, while Serana approached the now coughing soldier.
The man met her gaze with hatred-filled eyes. He lacked his weapons and helmet, both already removed by Serana’s soldiers. However, since both his legs were broken, he had been seen as harmless and left for last, with no one even bothering to tie his arms.
The Custodian hummed in thought and then threw the metal weapon along with one of the ammunition boxes she had looted to the soldier, much to his surprise.
He stared at the weapon blankly, before making up his mind and reloading.
Serana watched his every movement curiously, not reacting at all when he took aim and started shooting.
Her eyes glew softly as sixteen shots hit her shield, the weapon clicking emptily as the soldiers tried to fire again.
It startled the knights around her. She spotted Aisac and a few others making their way to her, but Serana waved them off, turning her gaze back to the Terran soldier. The view of the other prisoners was mostly obscured by the knights and soldiers surrounding the captives, but she could hear raised voices from their direction.
As the Terran soldier gaped, she reached down and plucked the weapon out of his hands.
Serana then retrieved the second ammunition box she had looted from one of her pockets and deftly reloaded the weapon.
She then turned a little metallic contraption on the side of the weapon as the soldier had done, took aim at the soldier and pressed the trigger.
Nothing happened. She did not count the rapidly spreading pool of urine originating from the man.
She stared at the petrified man for a few seconds, thinking.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, before turning the little contraption back to its previous position and once again aiming at the man.
“NO WAIT!” the man screamed something before Serana pulled the trigger, the bullet going straight through his skull and deep into the ground.
Aisac and a few others once again turned to her, but quickly resumed their duties once they saw that she did not need nor desire their help.
The other prisoners caused another ruckus, though they were quickly subdued by the surrounding soldiers. They'd envy their dead comrade soon enough.
The Custodian did not spare the newly made corpse another glance, instead examining the hole in the ground made by the weapon.
The bullet went deep, barely slowed by bone.
A minute later, she raised her head and looked around, done with her examination.
All of the remaining Terrans had been rounded up a short distance from her and now kneeled on the ground.
With the auxiliaries having arrived shortly after the battle’s end, her people outnumbered the surviving Terrans significantly. As such, subduing the survivors had not been terribly difficult.
The few hundred survivors did not seem to understand their predicament. Their faces were twisted in anger or uncertainty with precious little fear.
She also spotted a few Terrans jogging towards her from the Colonel’s encampment, though they were still a few minutes away.
A minor concern.
With swift steps, she walked to the prisoners and Aisac, her robes swishing with her movement.
Once there, she stood next to the Knight Commander and watched as the captives were stripped of their armour.
Once one of the captives had been cajoled into showing her soldiers how, it proved to be a surprisingly swift affair. Removing the Terran armour proved both easy and intuitive, its design far above what her own people could make.
“Make sure it is all properly catalogued and stored, Commander,” Serana spoke to Aisac, motioning towards the growing pile of armour on the side.
“Of course, Lady Custodian.”
With his assurance, Serana turned her attention back to the captives.
“Have you identified any officers?” She asked.
Aisac shook his head, “No, their armour bears no markings that we could see. I have however made note of a few that the others keep glancing at, Lady Custodian.”
“They will have to do.”
Perhaps she had been a bit hasty in killing the twenty that had approached her.
“Should we take them to the cells, Lady Custodian?” Aisac asked.
“No, let them watch. Perhaps it will make them more cooperative,” she responded, glancing towards the auxiliaries preparing the stakes.
Lessons needed to be taught.
The prisoners had yet to notice if their relative placidness was anything to go by.
The next few minutes passed in silence, with the prisoners growing steadily more confused as they were simply left kneeling on the ground.
Soon she sensed the other group of Terrans come to a halt on the edge of the army. A minute or so later, a knight in particularly bloody armour approached Aisac and whispered the group's arrival in his ear.
When he left, Aisac did not bother speaking, simply looking at her questioningly.
She nodded and together they marched to meet the group.
When she got closer, Serana recognized the Colonel as he was once again without his helmet. He seemed quite busy staring at the knight blocking his way. He was accompanied by four other soldiers, all of them of the taller, more imposing kind.
“Colonel.”
His head snapped to her, eyes widening momentarily. He quickly schooled his expression and spoke, “Venerable Custodian, we wished to congratulate you on your victory,” he paused, his gaze shifting towards the prisoners, “I would also like to ask what you intend to do with the prisoners and if you would be willing to hand them over.”
The Custodian frowned, making the Colonel continue just a little more quickly.
“They would be thoroughly punished for their unlawful actions, of course. The Republic would be grateful as well.”
“That is not an option, Colonel,” she responded.
“Then what do you intend to do with the prisoners?”
“Execute them, of course.”
The Colonel’s eyes widened.
“I-I see,” he averted his gaze, before his eyes locked on the labouring soldiers, “Wait, are those supposed to be stakes?”
“Yes? What else would they be?” Serana asked, genuinely curious.
“I thought that you meant to burn your dead,” the Colonel murmured, his face going white.
The Custodian looked at him consideringly. It seemed that where a show of Eternity's power failed, simple violence succeeded. In the end, humans were truly predictable creatures.
“But what about their rights, surely this is too bar-,” he stopped, catching himself, “excessive, uh, Venerable Custodian.”
“The only true right any of us have is the right to die. They forfeited everything else when they chose to disrespect Eternity.”
An example needed to be made and not only to prevent future bloodshed. She doubted that the higher purpose of their deaths would console the soldiers, though.
“Right. We shall leave you to your duties then, Venerable Custodian.”
Serana nodded her permission and with that, the Colonel and his guards once again left.
The Custodian’s eyes lingered on their backs.
She wondered whether this would be enough for the Terrans to learn. Somehow, she doubted it.
With the Colonel gone, she turned back and walked to the prisoners.
While surveying the foreign people, it occurred to her that she should have had the Colonel translate.
She mulled the option of sending someone after him over, but ultimately dismissed it.
After all, the Terrans knew why they would be dying.
Soon the first batch of stakes was ready. They were hammered deep into the ground a few hundred meters from where the Terrans kneeled.
The Custodian gave a nod to the Knight Commander and soon screams resounded on the plains once more.
Once they realised their awaiting fate, the remaining prisoners tried to resist. But weaponless, outnumbered and often wounded, they could do nothing except beg and scream.
No one listened.
One by one the remains of the proud Terran army were impaled on wooden stakes.
It took hours for the last of them to die.
