Epigoni

Now, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men ...

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Like most stories, this one begins with a girl.

Well, no. Actually, it begins well before that. It actually starts with this galaxy-spanning civilization. Its name and its politics stopped mattering a long time ago, but its people called themselves the Cheldrun. Still do, actually. They were really something, these Cheldrun. They'd unlocked the secrets of the universe. They walked among the stars like gods.

Funny thing about pride: it never ends well. Even gods can reach too far. The Cheldrun did. Long story short, they went from being lords of creation to being a civilization of refugees on a backwater planet terrified of their own shadows.

Two hundred years later, that's when our girl makes the scene. Her name's Eris, and she's a Biomade - that's a kind of Cheldrun. She's not like a lot of the newer models. No fancy psychic powers or sixth senses, though she had always had a talent for resisting telepathic scans. It isn't that telepaths can't get into her mind, it's just that some quirk of her brain chemistry means that they only see in her mind what she wants them to see. But sheer physical and mental superiority is her game, and that combined with a grasp of strategy that had downright terrified her instructors and the finest training available this side of Karia makes her one of the most dangerous Cheldrun alive. She worked with the Heishi out of Geneva Prime - a field commander of a sort. Devoted. Loved her job. She had something of a talent for directed, deliberately applied chaos, and that sort of thing was valuable to the powers that be. She'd fostered a few kids as a part of her civic duty to Cheldrun society. Lived with a man who worked as upper management for Goshi. She had a good life. Things took a dive with the events at the mine entrance, but despite her grief, life went on as it had before.

All that changed the day the demon leveled twenty square blocks of Geneva Prime.

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It was now two days after the explosion, and the dead lay strewn about the rubble in great rotting piles, the steady rain-beat mingling with the fading heart-beats of those who were yet dying. Over a million Cheldrun had died, and the rescue efforts were stymied by the sheer scale of the destruction. Battle and carnage had come to Geneva Prime, the streets with human gore imbrued, and the rainwater mingled with the blood of the fallen.

Eris lay facedown on the cold pavement, hovering somewhere between the moments, between life and death. Her dark, dark hair hung in a wet tangled bundle around her head. A rifle lay discarded close at hand, slick with rain-water. It would have been easy to let go. Easy to drift away into the death that seemed so comforting, so welcoming in that moment.

One thought stayed her from this course: the sight of the fugitive, Moses, rising from the rubble of a destroyed building some ten minutes before the explosion. His involvement couldn't be a coincidence. Somehow, she was certain that this had happened because of him, just like everything else in the city had been happening because of him.

Just like Rain's dismissal of her lover and his banishment for his involvement in the incident at the mine entrance. He'd died en route. It's a long walk to Stardown. She herself had only escaped that fate on account of sheer talent: she was too useful to send away. That had been the first time Moses had ruined her life.

This was the second.

She would not allow herself to die. Not yet.

She had to make him pay. She knew just the way. It was nothing so simple as direct physical confrontation. That hadn't worked against Moses in the past, and there was no reason to suppose it would work in the future. But then, there were other ways. He had companions. Helpers. After the incident at the mine entrance, they'd all received a full report: A scythe-wielding Karian. An Allskin clinging to his pretense of nobility. A Zipsum. A red-eyed Goshi assassin. Yes, that would do nicely. After all, she'd always had a talent for directed, deliberately applied chaos.

Eris came back to herself with that thought, pushed herself out of the puddle that would have drowned her had she lay there for only a few moments longer, and sucked in a long, hard breath of charnel-stained, rain-tinged air. Her eyes seemed to crystallize as she rose to her feet: they had always been an icy blue, but now they were as cold and pitiless as the frozen north.

Surrounded by the bodies of her Heishi squad, Eris coughed once, twice, scooped up her rifle in one hand and clenched her fist with the other. "Moses," she whispered, as though her voice could reach him across the vast distance that now separated them. "Let the First Minds stand witness. If it takes a thousand years, I will find you, and I will make you pay."

Lightning flashed, sparks showered, and Eris limped away into the rain-drenched night.