Chapter Text
Five years spent wasted on a red dust planet.
If you stayed too long on Mars the dust would begin to infiltrate your lungs and drown your hopes. Oh, they put up shiny steel barriers and VERS technology to ward off the barren wasteland, but it was always there coating even the machinery with a layer of grime that couldn’t be wiped off.
Orlane always told him he’d been too ambitious. It was how he’d been caught and slated for execution in the first place.
He chalked down another day on the wall in the heavy stone prison. For such a technologically advanced society VERS’ methods of punishment were antiquated, none moreso than the prison system which had clearly been inherited from their ancestors.
The prison warden admitted two people into the dim cell. One short, one tall.
Saazbaum noted with faint unease the fact that they didn’t seem to cast shadows. Even their heavily cowled faces seemed to be lit evenly.
‘Count Saazbaum,’ the tall one said. Mockingly.
‘We have a proposal to make to you,’ the other one continued casually. ‘It would be wasteful for a young man such as yourself to have his life cut prematurely short, now wouldn’t it?’
Saazbaum snorted. It was an ugly and graceless sound. ‘Did Orlane send you? Or did you come up with the delusions that VERS cares about rankless Martian revolutionaries by yourself?’
The pair swapped a superior glance.
‘We’re just passing through the neighbourhood.’ The tall one twittered. ‘We’re from… a separate colony with similar interests.’
‘How’d you like to become an Orbital Knight?’
Saazbaum indicated his manacles. ‘Clearly you two are able to work miracles,’ he said his voice heavy with sarcasm.
‘Oh, that’s easy.’ The short one gave him a cursory glance. ‘It’s surprising what can be achieved by giving history the right nudge in the right direction. You’d be free from this prison too.’
‘All we want you to do is kill two people.’ The taller one took out an old fashioned pocket watch. From the distance, Saazbaum could see that there was the image of a skull on the face. He put it back in his pockets. ‘It’s easy. The VERS princess and a time traveller known as the Doctor.’
‘You’re absolutely delusional. And I’ve never heard of the Doctor of whom you speak.’
The tall one methodically removed his glove, finger by finger. Beneath it, the tendons were a mesh of robotics. ‘Oh, you will soon. In a little over an hour, anyway, though you won’t need to kill him for more than a few years.’
‘Just make sure you do it properly, his people have … methods of cheating death.’
‘And what if I don’t agree to this charade?’ Saazbaum snapped.
‘Wouldn’t it be tragic if your friend Orlane suffered from a heart attack? Humans are so fragile you know. In one hour fifteen minutes and twenty seconds she’ll be dead because the nurse forgot to administer the aspirin in the IV drip.’
For a moment, the world froze and tilted for a second. ‘No.’ He whispered. These people. Were they even people? And where was the prison warden anyway? He couldn’t see what the short one was doing but the door, impossibly, slid open.
‘Or you could agree and bring her back. That would be the most convenient option.’
‘I don’t have much of a choice, do I?’ He smiled wanly. ‘I agree.’
‘I wouldn’t worry your human mind about the possibilities.’ The short one said, and grabbed him by both arms until his back hit the stone and all he could see was the soft Aldnoah powered lights in the metal ceiling. The thing, whatever it was, was too strong to fight off and Saazbaum swore he could hear the clicking of clockwork.
‘What are you doing?’ He demanded, struggling and failing to stand up.
‘Oh trust me, this won’t hurt at all.’
The tall one stabbed two extended metal fingers into Saazbaum’s eye sockets. The martian’s entire body jerked as two fingers came out of the back of his skull with a wet crunch.
The last thought that went through Saazbaum’s head was that the tall one had been lying when he said it wouldn’t hurt. All he could hear was the clocks.