Captain Mathieu Fontaine did not survive The Askaran Betrayal War. Following his capture of T’Malka A’Qarth, Empress of Thuun, in the Battle for Thuunvaal, he succumbed to a violent counterattack in a hillside residential district overlooking the city. Armed with only a stun rifle while defending against a determined attacker, Captain Fontaine was able to hold his position long enough for reinforcements to come and take possession of his captive. For bravery and martial skill in a difficult position, Captain Mathieu Fontaine was posthumously awarded the Askaran Moon medallion, the highest award given to an outworlder. So read the official After Action Report.
T’Malka A’Qarth, Empress of Thuun and architect of the war, also did not survive The Askaran Betrayal War. In military tribunal proceedings which took place after the Thuunian surrender, T’Malka A’Qarth was found guilty of several crimes against the world and was summarily executed in a military prison near Valkevaal. Her remains were subsequently burned and the ashes disposed of. So read the official histories.
Three months after the report of T’Malka A’Qarth’s execution, an interstellar cargo transport left Askaran space with an outworlder refugee dressed in an Askaran travelling robe and carrying an Askaran Stinger among his possessions. The refugee, who went by the name of Feldmarschal, kept to himself as the transport made its way to its next destination.
Many cycles later, at an abandoned cargo space port on the sixth planet of the Protean system, a long-dead Askaran empress emerged through the open hatch of a Protean air car. T’Malka A’Qarth strode confidently to the shimmering Gray Woman and the captive lying prone beneath her. Considering her history, the years had been kind to T’Malka, adding a deadly maturity to her features. From his numbed position, Feld could neither see nor sense T’Malka, but his suspicions were confirmed soon enough.
“Get off my prize, tralk! You were hired to capture him, not frell him!”
Momentary anger flashed across the Gray Woman’s face, only to be replaced by whimsy. She shrugged. “Sure. It’s not like he’s not going anywhere.”
The Gray Woman got up from her position astride Feld and stepped aside a short distance. Feld’s vision was soon filled with T’Malka’s lithe form kneeling over him. She give him a quick visual inspection and leaned towards his face, with a lusty, dominating smile.
“We meet again, my little feldmarschal. How I’ve missed you.”
T’Malka’s lips met Feld’s and her tongue greedily parted them. Sensing no reaction from her oral intrusion, she looked into his eyes, then leapt up and turned to face the Gray Woman.
“What have you done to him, Lucretia? You were paid to capture him intact! Intact!! And promised good money to do so. If you’ve ruined him for me, your days are numbered!” Her hand reached for a hidden blaster.
Lucretia stood there unfazed. “Cool your jet packs, T’Malka. He’s fine. I just needed to immobilize him, that’s all. Non-vital neural senses have been numbed, shut down. He’ll be himself in a few minutes, an hour at most.” She paused a bit, then added, glancing at Feld, “Obviously you two have a history. Before I hand him over to you though, we need to discuss my payment.”
T’Malka visibly relaxed. “Your payment’s in the air car. Come with me. Once you’re paid, you take the air car with your payment back to Denara, or wherever else you want to go. Another will return…”
Together, Lucretia and T’Malka walked toward the air car as T’Malka’s voice trailed off. Feld lay there with a pounding heart and pounding head. If only he could move! The Hairy Photon knows what T’Malka had planned, but, whatever it was, he would be in no position to fight it once it started. He thought of one possible option, but he needed to… There! His finger just twitched! A moment later Feld was able to move his foot. On the air, his pheromone sense picked up the faint burnt rose scent of Lucretia. Just a few seconds more, heart and mind racing…
He was up! Immediately, he made a run for the hangar. A quick look back showed that both women were in the air car’s cargo bay. Past the hangar doors, Feld turned left and ran for the water valve. It was a long shot, but he needed to even the odds a bit. Feld had no idea where this cargo port was, no idea of the surrounding terrain and 2:1 physical odds against him. He had to even the playing field and stick with what he knew, or thought he knew.
He paused momentarily to adjust his eyes to the darkness within the hangar. As his vision improved, he heard shouts of alarm come through the hangar doors. Feld sprinted to the water valve and the thick grating in the floor. With an effort, he lifted the heavy metalwork and let it fall to the side of the opening with a sharp clang. The rectangular basin under the valve spout was roughly 6×4 meters with an angled bottom to a 2 meter diameter drainpipe. Feld ran around the basin to the valve and turned it on. As the water poured forcefully into it, Feld removed his clothes as quickly as he could. Any extra drag while underwater could prove fatal.
Staring into the white water rush below him, he stopped as T’Malka’s sense brushed his aside. Turning toward the hangar doors, he saw her luscious form silhouetted against the fading twilight. It had been so long since they lay together in ecstatic delirium. Feld could feel the old need build within him and was sure that she felt the same for him as well. After all, why else would she have gone to such trouble to find him? He was about to walk to her when a second silhouette appeared in the hangar doorway.
Lucretia’s malignant pheromone signature pulled Feld’s consciousness back from oblivion. It did not replace T’Malka’s sense, however. Instead, hard wired genetics fought with toxic reactions and the conflicting signatures twisted in Feld’s mind until they merged into a horrific mix of drowning in a bloody river, childhood immolation and compelled necrophilia. On the verge of madness, Feld took a deep, septic breath and jumped feet first into the basin.
As straight as possible, after a bounce or two, Feld found the center of the pipe and the icy cold water rushing within. The temperature immediately shocked him and he yelled involuntarily. Feld desperately fought the urge to breathe and continued falling for what seemed an eternity. The jarring blow of the pipe’s elbow, though softened somewhat by the frothy water, broke his concentration and he inhaled a large volume of water as he slid down the incline. In a full panic coughing water up from his lungs, Feld was launched chaotically out of the pipe and into a dark void. He bounced and splashed across the wet, concrete bottom of the tank and, gasping for air, was sucked into another, larger drain pipe. He soon hit another elbow and tumbled the rest of the way.
The fall from this second pipe into the next tank was not as high a drop as the first one, but Feld still hit the floor on his back with a shallow splash, which knocked the wind out of him. Once he regained the ability to breathe normally, he tried to look around, but no features could be seen in the deep darkness. The only sensations available to him were the echoing roar of the water filling the tank, the icy cold temperature of the water and the pain from the numerous bumps, bruises, cuts and scrapes over his body. The cast concrete piping had played havoc with his body and his underwear was mostly a memory. He couldn’t tell if he was bleeding badly or not, but he otherwise felt ok.
Feld walked back toward the sound of the rushing water, determined to get an idea of what his surroundings were. He was probably in a large tank of some sort, probably a graywater tank considering how he got here, but he had no idea how large it was or if the water would or could drain away. When Feld found the sidewall of the tank, he started walking around the tank in a clockwise direction always keeping in contact with the wall. He quickly determined that it was indeed a very large tank based on the shape of the wall and the fact that the water was rising very slowly. He had a distinct feeling of walking in a very large circle, but it was mostly instinct really. Even after his eyes adjusted to the darkness, there was absolutely nothing to see.
A change in the constant, water-rushing sound made Feld turn toward the pipe that had earlier ejected him. A click-clacking, bouncing sound added to the din and a glow began to emanate from a spot on the far wall where the pipe was. As Feld stared at the glowing spot on the far wall, the bubbling wash spilling out of the pipe could now clearly be seen. Finally, a large, bright, egg-shaped crystal the size of a man’s head fell out of the pipe with a blinding splash and illuminated the whole tank. Feld had to blink and rub his eyes a few times to clear the bright spot from his vision. As he took his first good look around the tank, another click-clacking bouncing sound could be heard from the pipe.
Wavy illuminations from the underwater crystal showed five other pipes high along the south wall, the last one being directly opposite the current, active pipe. The north wall had an elevated platform with a staircase on each side, extruded as part of that wall. From his vantage point, Feld to could see a mechanical valve of some kind on the platform.
With a couple of splashes, a second, and then a third, egg-shaped crystal bounced out of the pipe and landed in the tank. With the water level up to his knees, Feld began to walk toward the crystals. He was halfway there when he saw the gray nude fly out of the pipe and land gracefully on the floor of the tank. His pheromone sense immediately picked up the scent of burning flesh, dried blood and death and he immediately stopped.
Lucretia met Feld’s gaze and casually squatted down. Without losing eye contact or composure, she picked up two of the crystal beacons and tossed them at angles toward the far wall to make the points of a triangle. With the tank bathed in light from a variety of directions, Lucretia began to fade into the background.
“For some reason I can’t fathom, Chasseur, T’Malka wants you alive. Frankly, I think you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Still, I’m giving you one last chance to avoid an untimely end. Give yourself up to me, right here and right now.”
“Give myself up to you? You’re not my type. You want me, tralk, come and get me!”
As the echoes of Feld’s challenge died, Lucretia blended fully into the background. Robbed of sight, Feld tried to rely on his other senses to warn him of an impending attack. As the water level was rising, knee-high now, he tried to listen carefully for any tell-tale splashing sounds that walking or running would make. The constant sound of water filling the tank was all he heard, though. Feld could still sense her repulsive signature, but he couldn’t tell where she was based on it.
Feld stood still, waiting for an attack that didn’t come. As the cold water rose towards his groin, he quickly dipped down and rose back again, barking his breath from between clenched teeth. Better get that particular shock out of the way now, he thought to himself. The exertions involved in that tactical maneuver also drove home the fact that his feet and lower legs were growing quite numb. If Lucretia didn’t get him, this damnable water would. It seemed that he needed to make the first move.
The only dry ground in the tank was the valve platform on the far wall. Ever so slowly, Feld began sidestepping his way across the tank toward the left stairway, away from the water pipe and Lucretia’s last known location. He moved slowly to avoid making enough noise to mask an attacker’s rush.
As he made his away across the center of the tank, he stepped onto a steel plate, recessed into the concrete floor. There also appeared to be a rubber gasket where the steel met the concrete. The drain, of course. Feld looked up at the valve on the platform and wondered if that worked the drain mechanism. Draining all this water would help his position very much and the drain itself may prove to be a valuable escape route.
By the time he reached the open stairway, the water was over his hips. Feld gingerly climbed up the stairs and stopped at a spot just above the waterline, where he rubbed his legs and feet to get the blood flowing again. When he was able to feel his toes, he climbed carefully up the stairway to the platform, which sat about 8 meters above the tank floor. Nearing the top, Feld crawled up the last few steps and peeked just above the platform floor.
To his left, he saw the valve wheel and mechanical gearing. He also saw what looked to be some kind of ratcheting mechanism and a locking lever as well. Finally, too late, he saw a set of wet footprints which lead from the opposite stairway to the edge of his.
Lucretia’s shimmering gray foot caught Feld just under his jaw and sent him over the side of the stairway. Seeing stars and his jaw rigid from the pain, Feld hit the water with an awkward splash and slammed his head on the bottom of the tank. With a weakened gasp, his breath escaped heavenward in a stream of bubbles.