《Aegis》Chapter 61: The Scarab Opens

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You consider Ariavari's offer for a moment before flatly rejecting it. "No. Kamas has hurt my crew, my family, and I will not stand by and let it happen again."

Ariavari grins, "such fury for one so young. I'm willing to assist you."

You nod, "then the first step is getting the information out of this scarab. Any ideas?"

Ariavari shakes her head, "not at this moment, no. Allow me to meditate on it while you catch up on your reports?"

You grunt in agreement and reach for the dataslates. Half an hour later, and you are impressed once again by the efficiency of your crew. Elena and Adam purged the chaos cultists with the help of Monat, though it is clear that Monat did most of the killing on his own. Mu'randa managed to talk the two factions into a deal where the surviving crew would be taken off-world and, unbeknownst to the Redemptionists, end up in your employ. The Leaf carried them back to Dagda almost a month ago.

You skim and skip over the rest of the report to find the Medical work-ups for Yasha and yourself. Chief Medicae Berach's writing is full of medical terms, and the bulk of it goes over your head, but you get the gist of it well enough. You were found unconscious due to shock with your right leg shot away at the knee. The surgery to attach an augmetic leg was initially successful, but your body rejected the first one, and your eye at the same time. Two more attempts later, the new augmetics finally took and held. Most of your time was spent in a medically-induced coma to limit surgery trauma and enforce down time so that you could recuperate.

Yasha's report is much worse. Again, your not sure what to make of the medical jargon, but 'augmetic pelvis' and 'reconstructed intestines' both sound severe. The click and hiss of the life-sustaining devices still threaded into her torso stand as evidence to the damage she has yet to heal.

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You are startled by a hissing sound coming from your chest. Ariavari looks over as the scarab unfurls and projects a display onto the air in front of you: an image if Kama’s skeletal visage. It begins to speak

“You are awake, good. I should probably apologize for shooting you and your concubine, but I won’t. You deserve much worse for destroying all of my creations and stealing my sister.

We had gone aboard that construct you mortals call a shipyard to retrieve a Shard of our past. She took the ship, I the heart of the station. She found it, but one of you mortals triggered a device that nearly destroyed us both. We went into hibernation, and there I rested until awoken by a sensor pulse.

She was still aboard the ship when you stole it. Find her, free her, and give me the Shard, and I will leave you alone to live out the rest of your short life.”

Ariavari stares at you, " 'a womb of iron' would fit one of your human ships wouldn't it. Well, Wanderer, can you summon this ship to you? Or do we need to go to it?"

You shake your head, "The Terra Incarnadine is a twelve cubic kilometer construction zone at the moment. We need to go to it, but the Aegis can't traverse the Warp without a Navigator." You look at Yasha, "and she isn't available for the foreseeable future. So I need to hire a new one."

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