The Foundry | Part Four | Chapter Forty-One
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Four | Unmasked; Unbound; Unleashed
Chapter Forty-One
Rory was a lone wolf. Most often, she’d finding nothing more pleasurable than having time to herself. While she never failed to appreciate the availability of those she loved, their presence would be no less required of them than she’d expect in return, freedom was what friendship meant to her.
Choosing to undertake this mission alone had been a product of that long held preference to see all she could be. It was always the hope by existing without supportive structures which would shield her from protection to her own weaknesses, she’d learn the very most about herself, along with how she could grow in the process; those very same emplacements she’d found around her childhood which had prevented her from feeling seen.
Not only was she failed to be witnessed by her family, or the friends she might’ve made without their restrictive modes of unconscious manipulation — themselves, quite simply unprepared to deal with a girl of her power — yet also through her own perception of self.
This commitment to doing things alone had come with the discovery of how it gifted opportunity to undo all the coded beliefs her family’s ways had foisted into her psyche. By carving her own path, Rory rediscovered herself, and it was what led her to The Foundry in the first place.
To have this home she’d made threatened — Poe, no less — activated a sense of righteous becoming within the woman. She’d come to believe all that was happening would prove a test for herself and those she’d call allies in the end, challenge to burn away the fat from their souls, a needed culling of the fears and weakness borne within, preparing them all for greater threats of their future.
Just as she had with her entire life’s journey.
Auluré’s danger was mighty, and its hidden means of weaponry still troubled Rory greatly, but she knew herself capable, and there was no question of a Foundry warship’s ability to dispose of some force which appeared to be riddled with disharmony. Despite the obvious deception at play, there was reflection of truth, undoubtedly found in the situation created by their foe; Tiberius.
There’d been some splitting off within their ranks. A ploy — no doubt to Rory —but one which she’d be exploiting through means of subterfuge. Bliss was in communication with the cruiser, having found its way to orbit of Atreya, and making every effort to appear as an exiled envoy of human freight.
It was called Hearthlight, that ship, and this very name had added to the blatancy of its hoped-for illusion of innocence. Rory found herself the one to know — despite lack of factual proof — and her gut would be trusted by all after this.
Even if two of her friends had thought they’d known better about one thing, this time, and tagged along.
“Is there anyway you can help us get water? We just need water.” That man had been begging.
He was really trying to sell it, so much that Rory began to feel doubt creeping in. Monarch was leading the cruiser, joining its orbit of Atreya, and only just outside Hearthlight’s estimated weapons-range. The cruiser hadn’t made apparent its stowed weapons, all readable heat-signatures proving it nothing but a passenger vessel, but Rory had seen a sidebar mounted to the outer-hull’s lowest reaches on Monarch’s telescoping long range cams. They were torpedo launch-tubes, poorly shrouded, and nothing in Rory had doubt of that.
Poe and Echo were creeping in the distance behind Rory, waiting for the time she might be ready for their help, trying not to make any trouble for her as they’d found themselves compelled to mock dog-fight their warships.
“That bitch got me good.” Poe finally let slip to Rory over the comms, revealing themselves as if she’d had some idea what they’d been doing, or that they were even enjoying themselves together behind her in the first place.
“Sir — how many people do you have aboard with you?”
Rory chose to ignore Poe, right in the middle of subterfuge, shaking her head inside Monarch with some reluctant acceptance to it all.
There was a longest pause. Its passenger manifest told the Hearthlight’s head count was three hundred and four — a number which felt unbelievably high, regardless of that ships true purposes — and Rory knew the answer she was looking for.
Edison, as the man had referred to himself, finally responded, “Three hundred and four.”
Expelled carbon dioxide coursed inside the softchair’s hard-shell stowed, and gimballed to spin free within Monarch. That had not been the answer Rory was looking for — at least, if they’d hoped to receive water in any timely manner. She’d found herself quite glad in the face of this realization for the presence of her friends, and opened the comm-line to them alone, “Okay, we’re going to fuck this cunt up.”
“Yes!” Poe screamed in War Cry.
Their own intelligence was based off a friend Poe had as a child. His name was Theodore. When she’d first told Echo it had been too soon for the woman, but eventually she’d come to find the choice a cutest thing.
Theodore had been Poe’s bunny rabbit.
“Yippie!” He’d yelled through comms. The sound had Echo’s eyes go wide, some remembrance borne into her mind she’d previously gone through much work repressing.
Echo would later protest this nomenclature stringently. Poe would only say in response, “Girl, that’s just how he talks.”
Sill reeling from thar rediscovery which would have her returning to Chiron in the coming cycles, sandblasting her mind free of their terrifying manifestations into reality — a part of her skull forever vibrating from the impact of that wall — Echo had chosen to refocus on what mattered.
She could feel it — this was going to be their chance to do it for real.
“Who fucking knew.” Rory told without a hint of question in the words.
The cruiser reacted most plainly to its denied request, reading Monarch’s target lock, along with the approach of Scarlet and War Cry, deciding to launch its fleet of contact-mines and drone shields.
Hearthlight had gone full burn in reverse course along Atreya’s orbit, fighting the pull, making way towards the convoy of refugee ships which it would be falling upon just one third of a rotation around the planet’s circumference.
Rory took Monarch, positioned right in that battlecruiser’s path, and flipped it nose-under-body, allowing partial transformation into its renown warrior form, offering nano-seconds of improvement to its future-borne velocity in that same heading. Functions of its robotic transformation could impact g-force in most specific ways, to work in highest levels of synchronization with all its thrust capabilities, and Rory had taken the time to work this one out.
Monarch would remain far ahead, yet match Heathlight’s speed, which it could far outclass, drawing its fleet of contact-mines in Rory’s wake.
“Are we gonna do it?” Echo begged to know.
Rory was watching through scopes as her Bliss evaporated those contact mines with rear facing auto-cannons, shredding them inside out, insuring they’d no hope to follow her forward.
The whole time Poe was laughing over her left-open comms, nothing more pleasing to the girl than the wrought destruction of incompetent wretches. She’d taken to leading the splitting-stream of drop mines War Cry’s way, birthing a shot for Echo to cut free in pursuit of their foe.
In those moments to follow, such distance would be birthed between Poe and her friends, making slowest time in laying waste to those trailing vermin with her electromagnetic effector fields. Poe could’ve ended them any time she wanted, but she’d been waiting to see how this played out first — gifting Echo a chance to do that one thing she’d wanted so badly.
The reactor within her under housing was now installed, fueled, and armed. Those infinitesimally microscopic amounts of antimatter it held were still a heaviest felt weight within Scarlet, and comprised the entirety of what was stored at The Foundry previously.
Echo wouldn’t need to refuel — not ever — it would burn for a hundred of her lifetimes.
“You ready?” Echo asked the moment she’d seen those pesky, hapless contact mines so easily dispatched by Monarch’s brutality. Rory didn’t respond, but Echo took the queue from her own intuition, and fired the shot.
The birthing of her singularity offered a unique opportunity for Monarch’s own most deadly weapon. There was a synchronicity which Echo had first seen alone, and spent much time obsessing over, before explaining in profound detail to Rory. The very one she was now hoping for them to execute.
Hearthlight’s size was forty times that of a warship. Ever still, The Void was beyond capable of drawing in its mass, and fighting through its violent protestations of outward driving thrust. Those petty drone shields were no match for its vacuum.
While the cruiser would have no hope for survival from the out borne wrath triggered upon detonation, The Void could in-fact be re-enforced by Monarch’s own blasting power and create something before unwitnessed in terms of raw energy expulsion.
In a sight witnessed through Scarlet’s sensors; there’d been a most graceful release of thrust, Monarch’s inward folding moment of transformation, then those beautiful fires seen burning behind its occlusion on their return — Echo again found faith in her choice of weapon — knowing, that while she may not have a chosen, she’d have Rory who could fill that void.
Monarch’s sphere of purest white was sent from its blasting chamber, a glowing orb which tore through the darkness of space at velocities unmatched by more physical ammunition. The means and modes which Rory’s choice weapon could be wielded were of multitudes. Its ethereal fury was one of energetic transmutation.
She’d tune it to the foe she faced, resulting in whatever needs the situation provided, and Rory crafted Monarch to wield this light in a plethora of forms. A single shot with all its focus was a rarest use for this warcraft. Yet, when the blast would meet that darkness which Scarlet could create, the results were something yet unproven.
Hearthlight had gone golden with the impact of that whitest orb upon its hull. The Void’s collapsing singularity — so close to the blast-radius itself — had seemingly frozen in its implosion. The flames which surrounded that cruiser were of its own thruster’s fire, re-configured by the coding of Rory’s intent, enabled by the intelligence bore within her weapon’s light to self-immolate the craft.
As that ship burned from the inside out — Monarch and Scarlet both taking widest births in orbit of the chaotic happening, transpiring at speeds so slow it would feel most dreamlike — The Void had swallowed its melting form whole, sealing itself off clean, circumventing the terrifying aftermath of fury it might normally enact.
Those warships of The Foundry had picked up everything on their scopes, recordings their flight’s view of that glacially unfolding event. Time within the space of Scarlet’s void had changed by the light of Monarch’s fire, and no consequences would be felt by the people in orbit of Atreya from any debris or radiation they might’ve faced otherwise.
As they’d found Poe again, and taken aim back towards The Foundry together, still unsure how what just happened made sense, or could be utilized in the future, Echo was already sending her data to Leopold.
Echo felt something layered within the transpiration of all which happened. She’d wondered if Rory had too. Knowing Poe wouldn’t have a clue what they’d really be talking about, Echo spoke her hopes preemptively when she’d told Rory over their comm link.
“Only for tonight.”
