Chapter 46: Chapter 39: Peace and Rejuvenation

Unfortunately, the sword saint refused to remain silent, but Janine ignored her, eyeing the crowded hall compartment that connected to the medical bay. This was a waiting area of sorts, and lightly wounded soldiers, settlers, and those waiting their turn for scheduled procedures sat in chairs, playing cards, or chatting. Kalaisa sat next to her siblings, deliberately ignoring them. Clearly, she dismissed Janine’s advice about apologizing, but at the very least there were no fresh cuts on Kirk’s hide or new bruises on her sister and brothers. Cub steps, Janine, cub steps. Terrific also worked very hard to make a working unit out of you.

“Grab a token, any token,” Bogdan said.

Her sons dragged several tables close together and invited the children from Just Peachy to watch their play. Some cubs had minor injuries, but the majority were unharmed, anxiously awaiting news from the doctors about their parents. Several transports of the Second will take them and their treated parents off the Inevitable in the coming days and escort them to the Core Lands under the protection of the elite regiments. Commander Devourer has named those who have lost both their parents, sons and daughters of the Second, and the best teachers and civilian workers stood ready to help these youths.

As of now, soda and proper meals, brought from the ruined settlement, littered two tables. However, the excited cubs fixed their gazes on the third table, where Ignacy held out five tokens of varying values, while Bogdan covered his eyes with a paw, pretending not to look. A mutant girl took a Dynast token, a minted ring worth five tokens.

“Is that your token?”

“Yes,” the girl said shyly. In place of one ear, she had a gray tentacle that reached to her shoulder.

“Then don’t tell me what it is; drop it in the bag and prepare for a miracle!” Bogdan said cheerfully, and the girl obliged, placing the Dynast token into a paper bag held by the Wolfkin. “Now pay attention, everyone. Many people claim the Wolf Tribe knows magic…” Bogdan fiddled with the bag before the curious eyes, and the coin slipped from a prepared cut into his paw. He blew into the bag, and it exploded, spreading pieces over the gathering. “And wouldn’t you know it, It is true!”

“The token is in your mouth!” The children accused him, and the soldier leaned forward, opening his mouth so they could inspect his fangs. “Not there! Where?! Cheater! He swallowed it!”

“It’s right here.” Bogdan pulled the token from under the girl’s tentacle. “Here, little one. A gift from the Spirits! You want to be impressed?” He asked the small crowd, and more than one cub clapped their hands in anticipation. “I am somewhat of a stylish juggler.” Bogna pulled an empty shardgun’s container casing from under a table and tossed it into the air. “Now it is not a difficult trick…” He added another casing and juggled them with one paw. “…I can tell by your reaction. A really skilled juggler can do this and even look away,” Bogdan said, never breaking eye contact from the empty casings.

Janine grinned at hearing the giggles, understanding what her son was doing. The cubs were scared, worried, taken to an unfamiliar place, and surrounded by the soldiers and the Wolfkins. Her boys had their own ways of calming down such a crowd. Bertruda asked something, but to her, the sword saint’s words were just an annoying buzz, and the warlord decided to enjoy the show.

“But two seems a little too easy, am I right, cubbies?” Bogdan grinned and took a third metal casing from his pocket. “Watch and be amazed as I place a third one into the pattern!” The crowd erupted in laughter, and some even spilled their drinks as Bogdan used his free paw to hold the third casing behind the ones he was juggling. “Cool, yeah? Ain’t no one can match it…” The casings dropped from his paws as he spotted Ignacy easily juggling eight casings while winking at the cubs. “What a tasteless show-off.” Bogdan shook his head at the children’s thunderous laughter. Even some soldiers and settlers joined in on the fun.

Bogdan spun and confronted a child who remained silent. “Now why are you silent, little one?” The cub, a boy who had a rectangular eye and a pincer instead of one hand, kept silence, and the Wolfkin slipped under the table and lay on his stomach in front of him. “Don’t make me make puppy eyes,” he said, his amber eyes peering up at the child’s face from below.

“Mom…” the boy’s lips trembled. “I miss her. A screamer ripped her arm off. Will she be okay?”

“Of course she will!” Kirk grabbed the boy and sat him on his back. “She’ll get an awesome, shiny new prosthetic!” He grimaced and patted his rider. “Don’t touch my e-ears, please; they h-hurt a bit. Hold on to the n-neck; it’s sturdy!”

“What is a prosthetic?” asked a tiny girl, putting a finger in her mouth.

“It’s a complex piece of machinery that is surgically implanted into the body. Its sensors and wires are connected directly to the nerves and…” Ignacy began explaining.

“It is a metallic limb, like the one my brother has!” Bogdan interrupted and clapped his paws. “An unrivaled might, capable of punching holes in walls! Imagine how awesome it is to have such a toy! A gleaming metal form, housing tons of fantastic tools! Ignacy, show the flaming sword!”

“Is it wise…”

“Flaming sword! Flaming sword!” the crowd chanted, and Ignacy smiled, taking a step back. He swung his metal arm dramatically around as his paw transformed into the flamethrower and pointed at the ceiling. But only a small fire appeared, no larger than a finger.

“You may be wondering why we have a flaming fart instead of a flaming sword,” Bogdan addressed the audience. “So am I. What the Abyss, Ignacy?”

“Built-in safety systems,” Ignacy said. “Back to the juggling!”

Janine felt better as Kirk’s brother and sister joined Elzada in entertaining the Normies’ cubs. Bogdan was a miracle worker. Despite his reluctance to even glance at the sitting Kalaisa, Kirk’s shaking had subsided. He even asked Bogdan to teach him how to spit two casings into the air, and the two males amused the crowd by firing up their projectiles and catching them in their mouths, until Kirk accidentally swallowed one to the cubs’ applause. He bowed and permitted the little one to ride him. The supportive network of friends gave the male another chance at living a fulfilling life, and Janine wished him well and a mate to bring him dozens of cubs to raise.

The Dragena and Alpha packs sent their representatives to commend those who alongside their comrades. A wolf hag from the Alpha Pack grabbed a quiet Anji by the shoulder and sat her down, calmly telling her something. Kalaisa raised an eyebrow at such a sign of weakness but, surprisingly, didn’t mock or provoke her rival. Physical healing could only go so far. Even the Wolfkins occasionally required care to continue their journey through life.

We are kin. All of us.

An Investigation Bureau agent came over and thanked the group for babysitting the children. He joined the group, asking questions and typing in the children’s names to ensure their safety during transportation.

“Degenerates! Morons!” Chak arrived, his needle-sharp legs tapping as he led a host of Wolfkins from various packs, including three Ice Boys. Bertruda finally shut up, widening her crimson eyes at the military police escorting the group. None of the newcomers had any injuries, but their prosthetics sparked from disrepair. “You have been granted technological marvels, and you dare treat them like an afterthought? Do you even know how much it cost, you flea-ridden, ingrate idiots?” Chak rose to the ceiling and turned his upper body to face the two Wolfkins. One was an Ice Boy, the other a member of Ygrite’s pack. Both growled, frustrated at the insults. “And don’t you dare raise voices, pathetic miscreants! I don’t need any help to teach you a lesson you won’t forget!”

Janine chuckled, earning a stern look from Bertruda, who quickly turned to glare at the Order’s Wolfkins, understanding that one of them was from her household. After seeing the state of the artificial limbs in Ygrite’s pack, Janine went straight to the captain and voiced her concerns about the risk to the soldiers’ health and the potential hindrance in a combat situation. Cristobo promised to rectify the situation and ordered Chak to conduct a full inspection. Upon finding any damage or malfunctioning in a limb, the soldier was dragged to the medical bay to be checked for a potential infection.

Even seeing so many of her own kind here, it was comforting to know that the Ice Boys weren’t so flawless either. And it was somewhat adorable to see a white-furred boy lose his temper like his cousin.

“Shouldn’t you be resting, Chief Quartermaster? Surely, someone else could take on this task,” Janine asked innocently.

“In this mess?” Chak grumbled, watching over the group like a worried mother hen in fear of losing her chicks. “If warlords and sword saints can’t control their ranks, then fine, I’ll be a good boy and solve this problem properly, not permitting any coddling for these insipid meatheads and ensuring that my men have a semblance of rest at my expense.”

Huh-huh, you only want to sleep beside one woman only, bastard. Janine thought sourly. There was another reason why Chak had come here.

A synthetic voice called their names, and they entered the medical bay, greeted by a thick smell of anesthetics. The stench was so strong that Janine frowned and asked a group of medics to assist Bertruda. Activity was in full swing inside the compartment. Doctors used automatic drills and saws to cut pieces of molten stone and metal from the patients; nurses toiled hard, fighting to stop bleeding and rescue the less severely wounded; medical equipment beeped loudly as the horribly burned and maimed bodies stubbed by countless sensors floated in life-preserving capsules—everything told that the poor personnel hadn’t had an easy night so far.

Wolf Hag Sarkeesian was being attended to by two doctors who were busy installing what appeared to be a set of industrial drills into her fangless maw. The wall beside her was transparent, showing Dragena, dressed in a green robe and wearing medical goggles, who led an autopsy on a raider’s corpse. Ashbringer and Onyxia observed the procedure. Curious, Janine approached the glass, for the first time seeing her enemies naked as they hung in the cold storage.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Males and females shared similarities: a vast excess of fat on a well-built body. She could tell, despite their missing limbs and gaping wounds, that the excess fat on their well-built bodies was not the result of a decadent lifestyle. Their limbs were elastic, their upper bodies bent easily, and their shoulders were on an even level. There was no sign of the scoliosis so common in sedentary, farming, or mining lifestyles. These were warriors born for conquest—New Breeds who evolved from the Normies, but some were bigger than the rest.

Dragena cut open the arms, examining the hardy muscles that allowed the raiders to prove such a threat to the Wolfkins males. Inside the chest were an enlarged heart and two lungs—nothing out of the ordinary for a New Breed. Till Ingo’s student pointed at the bone structure, drawing the warlord’s attention to the similarities to bulls and cusacks, a body shape that distributed kinetic damage evenly around the skin, shielding the head and the rest of the body from the most vicious collisions. Dragena thanked the man and continued the vivisection, intent on prying every secret from the corpses.

Onyxia picked up a discarded stomach, sniffed it, and tasted the contents.

“This hydrochloric acid can easily break down metals. No trace of human flesh, familiar meat, unknown drinks… Not cannibals,” Onyxia declared, tossing the organ back. “There is nothing for me to work with. We need a prisoner. Had I’d been in the field, such incompetence wouldn’t have happened…”

“But you weren’t,” Ashbringer said. “You talk a lot about incompetence for someone who was too late to answer the call. Is that an example you want to set for future generations, or are you going senile from old age?”

Onyxia blankly stared at her named sister, filling Janine with unease. Even for a warlord, Ashbringer’s words reeked of frivolity when spoken to a first-generation sister. But then the shadow warlord laughed: “True! Rude, but true!”

“I speak how it is,” Ashbringer said. “Don’t deal in whats; deal in the here and now.”

“Leave someone alive next time, Janine,” Onyxia said, grinning. “Pretty please.”

“Enough, sisters.” Dragena quickly gave a nod to Janine and Bertruda and resumed her gruesome business. “The situation did not allow enough room for maneuvering. Janine performed the mission exemplarily. You heard names, and we know that the prey was trying to capture civilians to sell them. We saw the vehicles and the beasts they used. Thanks to Onyxia, we know they aren’t cannibals. Judging by the use of weapons and power armor, they have an industrial base of sorts. Plenty of information from one encounter. Set packs loose, get slavers, make them sing. Someone, somewhere, knows about this Gilded Horde. Take note,” she said to a nearby nurse, “of the similarity of their organs. My theory is that rather than evolving from an accidental exposure to the glow, they are a group of New Breeds.”

“Please follow me,” asked a medic, and Bertruda and Janine obliged.

On their way, they came across the mauled male from Camelia’s pack. The beast’s brutal slamming had rendered part of his body paper thin, and the poor soul still lived thanks to the machines in the emergency room. His amber eyes pleaded for a swift release of death, but his healer was of another opinion.

“I don’t recall giving you permission to die under my command, soldier,” Camelia said. “Perhaps you will refresh my memory later over a cup of tea.”

The Sword Saint donned the green medical hazmat suit and operated on the Wolfkin, moving far faster than most automatic machines, surgically joining torn arteries. Camelia’s paws blurred over the patient, and Janine witnessed the Gentle Star, as patients had called the sword saint before, in action. All sword saints had performed one of many spiritual tasks prior to accepting their title. First had claimed two hundred lives in a span of twenty heartbeats, fulfilling the Quest of the Death Bringer. Bertruda had supposedly finished the Quest of Compassion, which involved surrendering her earthy possessions and serving half a year as a simple laborer in the poorest soup kitchens. Camelia had completed the Oath of Healing, dedicating her life to mastering the arts of medicine, and she continued to practice even after achieving her rank.

What should have been done by a team of experts, Camelia did on her own. She cleaned the wounds from the bone dust, stopped the bleeding, and worked on the ruined organs, preparing them for artificial replacement.

Janine felt a sense of relief when she spotted Anissa resting in a bed, her slightly swollen right eye socket now adorned with a crimson eye. During the operation, the surgeon had removed the fur around her right eye, giving the wolf hag a rather ridiculous appearance, as if someone had given her an impressive black eye. Her eyelid had a bit of trouble closing around the metal, and a doctor gently pushed the camera deeper in its shell.

The doctors had completed the most difficult part of the operation, reviving and connecting the long damaged optic nerve to the artificial eye. Now only the lone doctor and Marco were with Anissa. Marco was retelling Bogdan’s jokes in a cracking voice and kept asking if his sister felt as if she had lost a part of her soul yet, to which she laughed and answered that all was fine. The boy also assisted the doctor by showing his sister images from a medical terminal. Anissa used her mechanical eye to tell if she could see the image clearly or not, and the doctor adjusted if blurriness hindered her vision.

This was just the first part of the recovery process. Once the artificial eye was calibrated enough for static pictures, Anissa will have to undergo grueling training to test her vision on fast-moving targets.

“I can wait until you check up on your daughter,” Bertruda offered.

“Drop the small talk!” Janine growled, walking toward her destination. “Wolf Hag Anissa is perfectly fine and in good company. To suggest that any Wolfkin needs comfort is an insult to the tribe! We weather any peril without a world of complaint!”

“What about it, then?” Bertruda coughed and elegantly pointed a finger.

Warlord Eled had an entirely different situation. Maxence and his crew tended to her, removing her remaining eye as the warlord’s granddaughter held her by the paw. A cloned replacement, two yellow orbs, waited in a bubbling vat. Such was their value that imperfection was not allowed for the sword saints and warlords.

Arms, legs, internal organs—cloned parts of their bodies rested in the storage. Unlike Iterna, cloning limbs in the Reclamation Army were obscenely expensive, but the state spared no expense, paying astronomical costs so a maimed A-Class New Breed could be returned to the field in a matter of months instead of years.

“Shit. I liked my previous set of eyes,” Eled complained as a metal appendage slid underneath the space between her eye and the socket.

“Then you shouldn’t have acted like a careless bum and actually paid attention to the battlefield,” her granddaughter yawned.

“Hey! Weren’t you supposed to provide comfort and care?”

“Care, yeah. Comfort, Abyss, no. I ain’t no pussy. Wanna water?”

“Ungrateful pup! I lie on my deathbed and you dare speak so harshly? Bring me booze so I can drown my sorrows for helping to raise such a fiend!”

“No booze,” Maxence said, operating the manipulator and pulling out the damaged eye.

“Merciless tyrant! I may be dying here! What if I never be able to play a harp again!”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Eled’s granddaughter asked.

“Never!”

“You are doing it to embarrass me. Doc, is there any chance you can prescribe her suppository vitamins?”

“What?! My own flesh and blood! Doctor, I am a warlord; I order you to prescribe her suppository pills.”

“Will you two shut up?” Maxence pressed a button and cutters moved closer to the nerves and arteries connecting the extracted eye to the body.

Blushing from shame, Janine dragged the chuckling sword saint after herself to the west side, where the situation was calmer, and they paused before the doors leading to the rejuvenation chamber. With a soft hiss, the door opened, revealing First and Alpa suspended inside two great spheres. Both leaders curled into a fetus position and were submerged in the restorative fluids, receiving a more advanced form of rejuvenation than the one that was available for shamans and sages. The latter received a rejuvenation injection, but the former had every cell in their body turn younger under a more sophisticated process.

Whereas First was elegant even now, Alpha had trouble fitting inside her own sphere because of the oversized claws. Her crimson hair covered her like a cloak.

The spheres opened, the sensor needles left the patients’ bodies, and the two landed, one as nimble as a dancer, the other shaking the floor like an artillery shell. A torrent of fluid spread on the floor, gathering in recesses. First spread his arms, letting the nurses wipe him clean, while Alpha knelt so a nurse could tie up her hair in a topknot.

“Marvelous, simply marvelous job.” First smiled. “Ah, the procedure is always so stimulating! My friends, you have outdone yourselves. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Sweetest Alpha, I have procured a bottle of wine from the fabled Sol’s Vineyard, no less! How about you and I share it in privacy?”

“Don’t care,” Alpha responded. “Go and drink yourself to death alone.”

“Such a taste is not meant to be enjoyed with anyone but the dearest friends!” First’s fur had dried up, and he bowed to Janine and Bertruda, inviting two squares to dress him in his voluminous white, purple and golden robes. “Milady Alpha, just imagine orbital platforms circling around the very sun itself, built for the sole purpose of producing the finest beverages in the entire system. Its numerous platforms, doomed during the Extinction, rained down upon the planet, and its noble gifts, created by some of the finest winemakers, remain highly sought even today. A mere sip of it reminds me of meeting a sunny morning in my mother’s arms… It brings tears to my eyes and joy to my soul! In some regions, you can buy an entire island for a single bottle of this beautiful drink!”

“I am trying to quit smoking, First. Replacing one detrimental habit with another is hardly a beneficial trade-off. Shut your trap and join me in the command center if you are ready to be useful. We need to find out who these bastards were and peel their skin off, piece by piece.”

“You have but to ask, my fearsome lady!” The grandmaster of the Order took Alpha’s clothes from the nurses and hurried to help her dress.

Good luck and all, but couldn’t you find anyone… less bitchy? Janine wondered, entering the first sphere, and the sensor needles pierced the skin close to her spine. The Spirits knew she was temperamental, but at this point, it was hard not to be sad about First’s courtship of Alpha. And no one could quite understand why. Alpha wasn’t beautiful: she lacked fur, her claws were the terrifying unretractable rending talons, and she had a foul temper. And then there was First, someone who made breath stay still even in the females of the Wolf Tribe, always pleasant and ready to help, with impeccable swordsmanship.

Alpha loved might. Be it physical strength, cleverness of mind, stubbornness of self-improvement, or the ability to stand up after the most humiliating defeat. Her sense of duty was unparalleled; her pack held an elite rank by right, but Janine doubted that someone as First could ever win her heart. The two simply had nothing in common aside from being trusted comrades in arms.

Janine took a deep breath and curled into a ball as the sphere closed and the rejuvenation solution began filling in. She experienced a brief moment of panic while breathing in the thick liquid, but her lungs adapted, and the process of rejuvenation began.

Age was not for someone like her.

Rejuvenation. A technology developed shortly before the Extinction. It reversed the aging of cells within an organism, granting agelessness. At set intervals mandated by the medics, all warlords, shamans, sages, and sword saints, along with a few exceptionally valuable New Breeds, like Anji, were to undergo this procedure and return to the prime of their lives. In this New World, the New Breeds, like Bertruda and Janine, were valued more than automatic weapons as they were mobile, thinking weapons of conquest capable of single-handedly carrying out the Dynast’s will. To ensure their loyalty, they received numerous benefits and exemptions, but as with all positive things, there were also drawbacks. Their soulmates grew older, breaking their partners’ hearts as nature took its course. To see your own cubs grow older than you, to see them dead before you, to see your dear comrades wither and die, leaving you all alone on the road to a better future… It wounded their hearts like no spear ever could. This, too, was part of their sacrifice to the state.

Broken? She remembered Ravager’s words. I am whole, Blessed Mother. A hunk of steel forged into a sword for the state. I am complete and my destiny is set. But you? You are a sea of gems, scattered from a secure case, precious beyond all worth, and once assembled and displayed, priceless.

Closing her eyes, Janine has allowed the machines to work, let her conscience wander into the past, remembering her soulmates once more, and they greeted her, smiling, concerned, or happy. I am sorry, blood of my soul. I can’t open my heart to another yet or join you. Forgive me, for there is a journey ahead of me.