The Justiceers - Part Six: Chapter Four
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
Part Four: Prefinished Business
Part Six: Death Rides a Horse
6.4
Each Noruki fighter of The Artemis was of most unique and divine creation, their making so crafted by those crucial knowings within Gary through all war tactics and technological marvels accumulated on that first pass forward through time, honed and sharpened to innate perfection on this glorious run of untouched dominance over evil while so flowing backwards through the fabric of eternity.
There was a reason the forces of the devil were to be defeated at every turn. Their plans and schemes had been known in full, and the terrible doings they’d bring to the universe were prescribed in fullest for erasure by The Artemis and its brother Illith by Admanium itself.
This war was near its end, evil through all of time beyond this nexus point since passed would crumble rapidly from within, and Miriam Halafax herself had now taken captaincy of a Noruki fighter — part of a trio, known aboard this ship as The Furies, another name bestowed by Gary’s mythologies of Earth — one to be flown by the intelligence himself, and the last to be piloted by a most decorated Captain of the entire fleet, born back from the end of time itself, that singular beast of soul so known through legend; Laurentine Daemenos.
Together, these three were about to strike ruthless blows to the spine of this legion from the past’s remaining forces of blindest hatred — closing at highest speeds capable for ships bearing human occupants, yet even beyond that for Miriam, herself so expanded through deepest connection to The Artemis and the universe in whole. Surely, she’d been nutting her pants the entire time.
Regardless, velocities wrought by spent fuel accumulated from countless suns through the breadth of time, sights of vision which would take one beyond the body to perceive unseen truths of the universe, overcome with connection to each other through these perfect machines of righteous justice, there would be no better time in the life of this future-born visage of Miriam Halafax.
Especially because it was here, and now, after all this joy and pleasure of finding herself within the system of Yemi, brought home by such perfection of form, where she’d finally realized how little Arthur wanted some perfect angel-bitch, and the poor baby couldn’t take it. Everything just hit her all at once, connected to those other parts of her so superior to his wanting in every way. This angel was in every version of Miriam Halafax, yet, she’d known no struggle through her greatest lengths of time spent ahead, modes of being so seeming to consider nature itself of lesser importance than the beyond, a lack of awareness and attention paid by their ways to those in purest need. All they did was focus on their pursuit of perfection. Miriam of the future was not at balance with the darkness hidden inside themselves, not one bit.
It was right here, at the acceptance of this knowledge, when Miriam Halafax of The Artemis had snapped.
This little twat was about to go mad, diving fully into the currents of her deepest shadow, and The Furies were a part of her now. Gary himself had come to trust her so deeply, believing her channel to the Great Light beyond his own mechanisms of calculation, and the man which had become of this re-born Laurentine Daemenos was only but a machine of war, the simplest tool, and a subject of her plans in their base nature.
She’d drawn golden paths between her wells of light beyond, tying her to every crew member, even boring herself within structures of The Artemis herself, and quite unknowingly becoming this fleets lone demagogue.
There’d been a plan to save so many lives from these ships of evil, this deployment of their greatest tactical force a need to accomplish it without fail, yet these revelations now found in the mind of this Miriam, and the ignition of every doubt and insecurity she’d held all this time unaware, each bit of darkness flooding her surface level consciousness for the first time in eons; it would all send her spiraling into a most chaotic mode of destruction.
Plans changed — no one would survive.
Connected through mind and heart, nano-fiber chest piece alight with conscious-technology, itself interfacing to the light-fibers embedded within the energetic space around her, breaking waves into the fabric of time-space, those same which Miriam could weave and twist by her own making, she’d decided a course and executed it.
In these moments there would be no thought or choice within a single member of The Furies, even Miriam, she was channeling pure rage, there was no reconciliation of wanting and morality towards any demand it made, and absolutely no hesitation in bringing it to reality.
Each Fury moved in patterns of harmony and grace unseen before in time-space for such a trio, an overture of technical menace, and the single greatest beauty of war the universe would ever see. No matter how mad their purposes might’ve become in the aftermath.
Illith had shown up most quickly, once it saw this newest plan in development, never to miss the chance to join in on such fun. His appetite for the calculations of destruction was unending. Every last ship in orbit of Malta had burned before a single transmission could be sent to warn another. There’d been seventy-three in total spread through the breadth of its orbit.
Cutting off from Malta, after less than a moment’s breath of waiting, casting away on the very strike of the final-fired gravity bomb’s homing slug falling upon its target, Miriam steered the intentions of her Furies homeward; Grammaton.
One Skip-jump, and a hardest burn, had them in a full-throttle approach bearing upon its former dark-side, hiding from the light of Learo while bathing in the amber glow of this planet’s exploding heart. It was there Miriam spotted The Belafour.
A message chimed on the comm-screen before her, bouncing through all three of the crafts now spiraling toward their target at most perfectly synchronized velocities of acceleration. The man himself — Carrigan Marks, fallen Judge of The Justiceers, and most lost heart of a human being — looked like a frightened child, unaware of what was to come from this woman and her Furies so beyond his means to calm with words. He’d not even tried.
Scowling through his pain, a hurt in those eyes she’d not even seen as it was said, hearing him clearly making the gentlest whimpers over the line, she’d spoken from some place so connected to herself throughout time.
“I hope you enjoy what you’ve earned with your foolishness, , Carrigan Marks.”
She’d cut the line a nano-second after her message had been delivered, The Furie’s swirling triplicate of perfection’s phase level energy well beginning to peak, the surging of its overflow manifesting purest swells of liquid-light at their forefront into a vibrational vortex of sapphire glow. An echo of energy was to radiate forth from the ensuing blast which would change the system forever, breaking down walls of purest hatred, and burning a devil into the woman who would soon become its greatest threat.
