“Hegemonic Production Facility #1743 is a standard mortuary plant that processes ten million corpses at any given time in its work cycle,” explained Leona Belisarius, scion of House Belisarius and Interim Governor of Province #CEN-913. “There, corpses with intact limbs are reanimated and returned to chaff labor, while those that don’t meet reanimation standards are rendered into protein gel for serf-grade foodstuffs or livestock fodder.”

“Leaving aside the cost of the plant itself, its industrial worth is twenty to thirty million Hegemonic credits, or several metric tons of gold,” she continued, brushing a stray lock of golden hair out of her eyes. “Now, Hegemonic Production Facility #1743 is a charred hole in the ground, which begs the question: who is responsible for this?”

The windowless interrogation room fell silent, save for the squeaking of its rickety wooden chairs beneath the weight of their occupants and the nervous tapping of gloved fingers against the top of a steel desk. A small overhead lamp flickered, dancing shadows across the faces of all present.

The two seated across the table from Leona blinked, as if in unison, and without missing a beat, pointed at each other. They exchanged incredulous looks for a moment, before opening their mouths to speak.

Leona slammed a heavy dossier onto the steel desk to forestall their inevitable bickering. The two turned back to her, muttering beneath their breaths.

She opened the dossier and looked at the interrogatee on her left, a man, a large one, in evident discomfort at having to squeeze his massive frame into one of the horrible chairs in this room. The top of his head had already brushed the ceiling lamp several times, sending its weak radiance into frenzied, fit-inducing spirals. His dark hair was long and disheveled, and he was clad in a one-sleeved, tattered traveling robe of faded blue. Corded, bulging muscle described his limbs and his neck, but his features were incongruously youthful and his eyes shockingly innocent, especially for someone with his reputation.

He was Raksha of the Conflagration, a martial scientist who’d slain tens of thousands in battle. And though his role might have been minor in the grand scheme of things, he had contributed to the salvation of House Belisarius itself. Leona felt some small measure of gratitude for the man, but it wasn’t nearly enough for her to overlook his possible complicity in this… incident.

Opening another dossier, she regarded the other interrogatee, a woman, brown-skinned, short but amply proportioned. Her hair, its strawberry blond hue screaming the aftermath of a cheap dye job, bounced messily across her shoulders and the exposed top of her bosom. The rest of her torso was squeezed into an orange bodyglove. She’d rolled up her green scarf and placed it on the desk, the same spot where she’d previously rested her boots before Leona’s icy glare had made her reconsider her life choices. Her hands were encased in stabilization gauntlets, which were rather eclectic gear for a Hegemonic sorceress.

But she was no mere sorceress. She was Sadea, a Slayer-class living weapon sanctioned by the Holy Church to exterminate the enemies of mankind. Leona’s optical implants readily registered the presence of several high-end augmentations rooted in the Slayer’s flesh: nano-enhanced healing factor, metabolic optimization, and grade-epsilon skeletal reinforcement, among others. More significant were the surgeries that had been carried out on her brain. The molecular lobotomies and copper circuitry festooning her cerebral matter were too complex for even Leona’s analytical implants to parse. These were what truly qualified Sadea for her Slayer-class designation, which also made her more likely than not to be complicit in, if not responsible for, the loss of an entire mortuary plant.

Sadea broke the silence. “Great Lady, please. I am utterly innocent. It’s all his fault.”

“What?” Raksha glared at the sorceress. “You started the fire! Don’t you remember?”

“He made me do it, Great Lady,” Sadea pleaded to Leona. “I was utterly at his mercy, and he made me do… things! Oh, such horrific, indecent, perverted, unthinkable things!”

“I did not—“

“Hegemonic law holds the compelled equally as guilty as the compeller,” Leona said, her soft, even tone reducing their protest to horrified splutters. “That’s why slaves share the punishment of their masters. Such is God’s will.”

Leona took a few moments to straighten the collar of her dress uniform, making sure her rank pins, gold braiding, and medals were readily visible, even in the flickering lamplight. Sadea gulped audibly, and though Raksha did an admirable job of keeping his features stoically stony, his dread was evident in the tight cast of his shoulders.

No one, not even rogue martial scientists and genetically engineered living weapons, offended a Hegemonic noble lightly.

She let the tension build for several more heartbeats before finally speaking again. “Raksha. Five days ago, you made an incident report to the local necromantic office at Asculum-Septimus. Specifically, you spoke to Field Operative Stefka.”

“Yes,” he said.

“In that report, you mentioned a tree, a mass sacrifice of human hearts, and, verbatim, huge glowing fruit-things that can’t be any good for anyone,” Leona continued. “Whereupon you left, saying you had a rough idea where one of these fruits could have landed and that you needed to, verbatim again, take care of it.”

“Sounds about right.”

Sadea elbowed Raksha in the ribs, sparing nothing from the blow. The man didn’t even flinch, though he glared at her again as she winced and rubbed her arm.

“Address her as “Great Lady,” you moron,” the sorceress whispered.

Raksha gave her a noncommittal grunt. “Don’t think she’s in the mood for any groveling right now.”

Leona sighed. Raksha was right. She had already experienced a lifetime of being called “Great Lady” and had many more years of the same to not look forward to. Still, the man could be a little less boorish.

“Sadea. Two days ago, you claimed bounty #718762 here, at Asculum-Sextus and presented the head of a mutant creature as proof. Administrator Hadriana and Operative Stefka verified your claim and paid you a hundred provincial credits. Are these facts true as stated?”

The sorceress nodded. “Yes, Great Lady.”

Leona swept her gaze across Raksha and Sadea. “Shortly before Raksha’s report, my household sorcerers registered a significant psychic phenomenon, the energy signature of which matches those radiating from the remains of the mutant Sadea killed. There is…”

“That thing came from one of those fruits. You know, the fruits from the Tree of Hearts. It was the closest among the ones I managed to keep track of, the night I burned that damned thing and the entire forest down,” Raksha said. “That’s why I went there in the first place, but I didn’t manage to save anyone.”

“I was just about to state the obvious connection.” Leona waved dismissively. “And no matter. Life is cheap, but infrastructure is not. The manufactory is largely intact, so your effectiveness in dealing with the mutant was satisfactory.”

“Excuse me? I was the one who killed the chimera!” Sadea coughed nervously as Leona looked at her. “I mean, I neutralized the threat, not this idiotic brute. Uh, Great Lady.”

“And you have been compensated accordingly,” Leona pointed out. “Or should we have paid you in appreciative words instead?”

“No, Great Lady,” Sadea squeaked.

“There was another of those fruit-things in the mortuary plant.” Raksha folded his arms, pointedly ignoring another of Sadea’s elbow jabs at his ribs. “We took care of it.”

“Which leads us back to the issues meriting this discussion: a fire-gutted mortuary plant, the loss of its industrial capacity, and whom to hold accountable.” Leona had mastered the art of the withering glare in her childhood. Sadea paled beneath its regard, and even Raksha leaned back, apprehension swimming in his dark eyes.

“It’s all Raksha's fault, Great Lady,” Sadea said, jabbing her finger at the man’s face again. “If he hadn’t been such a stubborn idiot, the mortuary plant wouldn’t have had a single scratch on it.”

“I’m not the one who has lightning coming out of her ass,” Raksha snapped, pushing her finger aside.

“Finally admitting that’s where your eyes have been glued to all this time, eh?” Sadea smirked. “Well, too bad having good taste is just about your only redeeming quality.”

“I—“

“Silence,” Leona commanded and pointed at Raksha. “You. Speak first. Keep going until I tell you to stop.”

Raksha shrugged and began speaking.