OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[AgentZero]

As promised, here's the next, almost as long as the last mostly by virtue of a big speach by O'Shea of all people, installment. JAF, you wound up with a syndrome named after you instead of a star system. Sorry about that. But it's a really cool syndrome.

And can anyone say triplets?








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This time, five minutes passed rather quickly, as they had a massive spaceship in front of them to observe in ever greater detail as they drew closer. At first there was just the general shape of a ship, with a few large, well defined weapon emplacements clearly visible. As they grew closer, large areas of light and shadow resolved themselves into clusters of guns and external missile racks. As they grew closer still, rows upon rows of gunnery emplacements became visible. Soon after, the nearly invisible slits of internal missile bays became visible, and shortly after that, as they were all still marveling at the vast array of firepower on display, the Daedalus was swallowed up into the massive ship's docking bay. There was a soft thump and the deck rocked gently.

“Docking complete,” Saraea informed them.

Wordlessly, the four of them made their way down to the common room where they were joined by O'Shea, who'd had the good sense to put on a change of clothes. They headed down to the cargo deck, and if Kagan hesitated at all before lowering the ramp, it was only for the slightest of moments. They stepped out onto the deck of the giant ship and looked about in awe. The docking bay was beyond huge. It stretched for several kilometers at least off behind them and to either side. They'd landed near one of many white doorways with blue frames. The doorway in front of them was closed, as were all the other doorways they could see in either direction. The floor was a dull gray but the walls and ceiling were eggshell white, though on closer inspection, Kagan realized he couldn't actually make out the ceiling. The walls just seemed to go up forever, disappearing into a sea of white. In the absence of any noise from the quintet, the only sound was a gentle hum that you only noticed when you thought to listen for it.

“Jasus,” O'Shea said quietly, making the rest of them jump despite his soft tone. “You could fit a superdreadnought in here.”

“Or a squadron of them,” Kagan murmured. “This ship is colossal.”

“I bet I could make it to the other side before anyone else,” mused Alice. “I can run super fast.”

Before anyone could think to answer her challenge, the door in front of them clanked loudly, then quietly open. On the other side of the doors stood a more or less humanoid robot. It was ceramic white with blue detailing and triangular blue eyes. It had no nose, for obvious reasons, though it did sport an oddly ordinary pair of ears. It's mouth seemed similar to the mouth of a normal human being, aside from the lips being blue, and it's arms and torso seemed designed purposefully to resemble their human counterparts in only the crudest fashion. The robots strode towards them gracefully and stopped before O'Shea, who was standing to the far left of the group.

“Good evening,” the robot said to him. Before he could reply, the construct had moved on to Saraea.

“Good evening,” it said to her.

To Fiona, it said, “Good evening.”

To Kagan, it said, “Good evening.”

To Alice it said, “Good evening, Grand Admiral.”

Kagan turned and fixed a look upon Alice, who ignored it entirely, chosing instead to stare at the machine with something between confusion and apprehension.

“Um, sorry Mister Robot,” she said slowly. “But I'm not an admiral. I am grand though, thanks for asking. How are you?”

“All my equipment is functioning within normal parameters,” the robot informed her. “And part of my normally functioning equipment is a GS1939-0608 DNA scanner, and your DNA which I have so recently scanned, conforms with that of Grand Admiral Alice Fiona Komatsu, commander of the Seventy-Fourth Fleet of the Grand Imperium of Sol.”
Kagan's eyebrows shot up. They hadn't called it the 'Grand' Imperium since the Second Dynasty, over five thousand years ago.

“Unless,” the machine went on. “You're claiming to be an impostor?”

“What would happen if I were an impostor?” Alice inquired tentatively.

“It would involve my sharp, jagged bits, and your soft, delicate bits,” the robot replied impassively.

“I ask only out of curiosity,” Alice said hastily. “I am of course Grand Admiral Alice Fiona Komatsu, commander of the... thing.”

“Seventy-Fourth Fleet of the Grand Imperium of Sol,” the construct prompted.

“That's the thing,” she agreed. “Hey,” she said a few seconds later. “What's with the guns?”

Kagan spun around to find that Saraea and O'Shea now had their weapons leveled at Alice and him. His mind raced. The two of them had manged to put a few paces between themselves and their targets, and he was quite certain he couldn't get close enough to either of them quickly enough to avoid being severely perforated. He spared a glance at Alice, hoping to find her ready to fight, hoping that maybe the two of them could disarm their friends and find out what the hell just happened. But Alice was simply staring at Saraea, eyes moist and her lips trembling. His eyes flicked over to Fiona, who was staring a hole through O'Shea, her hands twitching slightly at her sides. Maybe, just maybe, if she provided a telekinetic distraction, he could get in there and get a hold of one of those guns.

“I'm sorry, sweetie,” Saraea was saying. “I don't like this any more than you do, but we have orders, and we've come to far to go against them. Now I'm going to come over and give you a little injection. It won't hurt a bit and you'll have a nice pleasant sleep, ok?”

Alice's gaze abruptly turned steely. “The last person who tried to do that didn't fare too well,” she said dangerously. “And that time I didn't have a telekinetic backing me up.”

“Here comes the floor!” Fiona announced cheerfully, and pitched over flat on her face.

“She'll be fine,” O'Shea assured them. “She'll wake up in a couple hours with little more than a mild headache and a dry mouth.”

“What in the name of the Nine Divine Whores of Kantarl is going on here?” Kagan demanded.

O'Shea sighed. “I suppose we owe you that, don't we?” he said. “It goes like this: Towards the end of the Second Dynasty, Imperial scientists uncovered a method whereby nano machines could be used to temporarily mimic the function of human brain cells while new ones were created by other machines, thus overcoming the one major hurdle standing in the way of immortality; the eventual breakdown of the human mind. With this accomplished, true immortality was at last within our grasp for the first time since we'd cast aside our religious objections to it's pursuit. Of course, you don't want to be going about handing out immortality willy-nilly, that just wouldn't be responsible. So it was decided that only those deemed essential to the Imperium would receive immortality treatment. The emperor, of course, certain members of the royal court, key scientists, and since we were at war, members of the armed forces, including, but not limited to, Grand Admirals. Unfortunately, the war didn't exactly go as planned and the emperor, members of the royal court, key scientists and members of the armed forces for the most part, died. Of course, some had to have survived, and in the years that followed the end of the war, the surviving government put together a group of people tasked with keeping tabs on the immortals. That group still exists today, and still reports to the emperor. Towards the end of the war with the Taurens, rumours began circulating that an immortal that had somehow managed to evade detection for over five thousand years was beginning to take a, shall we say, more active interest in the affairs of the galaxy. Saraea and I are members of a ten man team sent to find, and retrieve this elusive immortal. And that brings us to you, Alice. You seem to have had a rather extraordinary number of clones made of yourself, and we spent literally years chasing some of them down, but upon close inspection, all bore genetic markers and abnormalities that marked them as clones. Fiona, for example, is a clone, and thus this machine's DNA scanner did not register her as being anyone of importance. You, however, it identified as Alice Fiona Komatsu, which means that we, at long last, have found the original.”

“But I'm not five thousand years old!” Alice protested. “I'm only... well I'm not sure, but I'm certainly not five thousand years old. That's an awful long time for me to have not noticed it!”

“You can stop playing games,” O'Shea said sternly. “We've got you now, and there's no sense in pretending any longer.”

“But I'm not!” Alice insisted.

“It's possible something went wrong over all those years, and now she's suffering from something akin to Fisher's Syndrome,” Saraea mused. Then, to Alice's blank stare, she explained, “Earlier attempts at immortality resulted in subjects whose bodies went on forever, but whose minds did not. Their nanobots would rebuild their brain tissue but in doing so overwrote existing memories and experiences, so that as time wore on, the original personality disappeared and a new one emerged. Regardless, some memories and knowledge of your previous self surely exists somewhere within your mind, and given that you're the only surviving immortal with knowledge of military technology, those memories could be vital to the future of the Imperium. That's why you must come with us.”

“You've never lied to me before,” Alice said slowly. “And I don't think you're lying now, but at the same time, I'm sure you have the wrong person.”

“I'm sorry, sweetie,” Saraea said regretfully. “But you're wrong.”

“Actually,” said an oddly familiar voice. “She's not.”

All of them spun to face the open doorway, and O'Shea let out a low moan.

“Ah Jasus,” he groaned. “Not another one!”