Xeadas
The screen glows as the old VHS tape whirrs into life, an image of a struggling woman brought into focus as she is bound to a table before the camera.
…
“Who are you?” A gruff male voice asks, the figure hidden in the shadows behind the prisoner. Only she is lit in that small room.
“Xeadas, UNTIL officer 2635947,” The prisoner says firmly, her eyes set on the camera before her, blazing with the same fury she had fought against her captors with.
“What are you doing here?” The same voice asks, the figure pacing in the shadows behind her.
“Xeadas, UNTIL officer 2635947,” Xeadas repeats in that same tone. Her gaze still fixed on the camera and not even moving as a gloved hand slams down on the table next to her own. Her hands do tighten though as her captor leans in to whisper something in her ear, a gloved finger running down a cheek and pulling back her short, white hair a fraction.
“That’s enough.”
The voice is quiet but authoritative and the man stops in his actions, backing away from Xeadas as the new woman approaches to stand near the table. The dark shadows hiding her from view but it is clear Xeadas knows who it is.
“Did they make you blue to make you more interesting to me?” The woman asks her tone regal and strangely kind, “Did they think it would make you more appealing? You were certainly intelligent enough.”
“Xeadas, UNTIL officer 2635947,” Xeadas replies, her only response. Yet her voice is weaker now as if she had not expected this.
“Or did you tell me the truth I wonder and you were simply a victim they chose because of random chance,” the woman continues, circling behind Xeadas to stand on her other side, “There is a place for you here, you know it. With your talents, your knowledge, you could do well here Xeadas. Join me.”
Xeadas’ gaze moves from the camera then, looking to the hand that now covers her own in the same matching blue.
…
The tape whirls in the projector for a moment, then all is static.
Contents
THE GIRL IN BLUE
Born on a fairly standard alternate Earth to fairly standard parents Xeadas was anything but standard herself. A mage of some calibre her people taught her all they knew, even as the humans that shared their world drove them further into the bleak wildernesses they inhabited. Able to withstand the harshest cold, that even that bleak planet could hurl at them, any that were not killed in the slow extermination were enslaved to work in the coal and diamond mines of the far south. Not even magic could stop the technology of their pursuers from destroying them. No doubt Xeadas would have died with her people had not the Empress come.
At first her kind welcomed this invader that looked so like them. Yet soon they realised that any hope of being treated better was a false one indeed. The yoke of the Empress was just as absolute as those of the humans that had come for them first. So they fought, their usual gentle magics turning to war. Fighting back with tooth and claw for every piece of their cold world. At first they thought they were succeeding, the Empress's war machine unused to such bitter temperatures. Yet their resistance was their death knell. For the Empress cheats.
A nova bomb was released to destroy the system of a planet that offered only resistance and no real resources worth having. Xeadas, in a last attempt to save her people tried to use the Empress's dimension hopping weapons to save them. It was all in vain though and a scant hundred were able to make it away. They were all rounded up in time and executed for their resistance. All save Xeadas who ran on through the dimensions, the last of her kind.
A SPY AMONGST THEM
LIFE AT UNTIL
Xeadas learnt to hide, learnt to act and above all learnt to be above suspicion in the following years. As a mage of her people they had taught her all they knew, and as she explored further she learnt all she could from any she met. Soon she understood the nature of the multiverse she journeyed in and with that knowledge was able to make her way to the dimension known as the Empress's most failed project. The universe of the Champions.
There she approached UNTIL, desperate to aid in some way in the fight against the person who had destroyed her species. Her knowledge and expertise made her a prime candidate and she was rushed through the ranks to join the strange band of people that made up Project Citadel. It was here she finally learnt how to trust humans as the other officers made her welcome and she found a home again at last.
It was that feeling, perhaps, that explained why she volunteered for such a dangerous mission behind enemy lines.
