Humanity Endures

Part 2 - The Senate | Chapter 3

Whom the assassin was to kill, the dead Nahmatiixer's implants had yet to reveal — nevertheless, if they were a target within the heavily-defended Capital Complex, then they had to be between "somewhat" and "critically" important to the Empire. Xertaza had wisely deemed it enough of a threat to justify the deployment of hundreds of her elite marines, fifty of her ship's enforcers, and even one of her ministry's few "Wraith" operatives to scour the building alongside the rest of the CC's extensive security forces. While this search progressed, her legions of analysts frantically combed through the expired Nahmatiixer's entire mind in search of information on his associate's target — information that could save this target, if it was timely enough, though so far neither search had proved fruitful.

Xertaza was one who would prefer to be blamed for the use of excessive force after a victory, rather than be chastised and hated for a failure; though she only had one abnormal corpse with some moderately concerning information hidden away within its implants, she had deployed a "Wraith" to the Empire's capital. These were genetically-engineered operatives, drawn from the most capable of soldiers the Empire has ever produced, and modified to the point where it no longer even resembled a human — the things were all that a commander could dream of. Being utterly remorseless, invisible to nearly every method of detection, blazingly quick, extremely intelligent, and unimaginably lethal, they were in many ways the pinnacle of human military technology. Those who became Wraiths could never return to humanity again, and as such only the most committed and selfless soldiers even attempted to join their tenebrous ranks. Such was their distance from the human race that the Empire's government, in the rare times it acknowledged Wraiths as existing, referred to them as "it" rather than "he" or "she" — upon becoming a Wraith an individual lost their name, and was given a number. The Wraith Xertaza now employed, one older than the Imperator himself, was referred to simply as "2907" — Xertaza could not imagine such an existence, or why anyone would choose it, but people did so nonetheless. Those people had saved countless lives across the Empire's history, yet due to the nature of Wraiths' operation, these same people had also prematurely ended many, many more.

When Xertaza deployed one of these soldiers to the Capital Complex itself, it became clear that hers was no amateur operation: assassins were all-too-often Wraiths themselves, or poorly-made imitations, and as it happened, Wraiths were often the best countermeasure against other Wraiths or their ilk. Xertaza was mildly concerned that even with her Wraith, she wouldn't be able to find the threat in time, though realizing that it was pointless to be fearful of something that one could work to prevent, Xertaza ceased fretting and continued commanding. Her forces penetrated further into the depths of the Capital Complex, some of the more elite among them heading towards the Senatorial Chamber under the direction of Xertaza herself, as any of the high-ranking politicians there were possible targets; the rest rushed towards the military administration wing to protect the CC's numerous bureaucrats. Despite the intensity of the search, however, nothing even slightly out of the ordinary had been found.

As she commanded, Xertaza's hands idly clutched the armrests of her chair — they were not needed when all she had to do to lead was think. Another instant, however, and, heralded by a blazing burst of visceral pain, Xertaza's left arm began to involuntarily shiver and quake, and was soon followed in rebellion by her now-twitching legs. The flesh on the surface of her own limbs shifted subtly, agonizingly, and unnaturally, while the fingers on her leftmost hand haphazardly contracted, extended, and thrust out at random while Xertaza's mind struggled to wrest control of them once more; her heartbeat, usually impervious to stress, began to haphazardly increase. Xertaza forced herself to endure the immense pain that came with one's body rearranging itself, and she carefully hid her traitorous limbs as best she could; despite the intensity of the episode, no one in the entirely distracted room noticed anything unusual. After she had concealed the event, Xertaza simply waited for it to stop; this only happened after a minute. Stretching her now-relaxed arm and laying it back on her chair's gilded armrest, Xertaza sighed exasperatedly — this had been her third "episode" that day, and a relatively intense one at that, when she was only supposed to suffer them once every few months. The timing, Xertaza thought, couldn't be a coincidence, and that belief only concerned her further; shuddering, Xertaza mentally reprimanded herself for her fretting and returned to work. Fear and self-pity would have to wait, for she had a life to save — and, should the assassin refuse to be captured, she also had a life to end.