A Single Rose

Delithita

At the beginning of what is later known as the Starsiege, a lady by the name of Adriana Galisborough was living on the somewhat forsaken world of Mercury. She worked as a botonist. Her job was to ensure fresh air was abundant in the many domes of Mercury's Antipode Colony. The botanical centres were massive undertakings some several miles wide, and a few hundred feet tall, so naturally the centres were mainly underground. Such massive scale required Adriana to use hercs to do a majority of her work, especially since she was the sole caregiver of the many plants. Being such also required her to know how to repair her light maintenance herc, which was a converted minotaur that had instead of hardmounts, digging claws and tree climbing grapples.

She continued on even after the Cybrids started landing on Mercury. Being so isolated in her work, she never heard of them coming to Mercury let alone the Antipode region. So unaware was she of the danger they posed, that when she was told she blew off the warnings as a childish prank... until, an executioner came busting through the hanger door of the centre. Guns roaring, the executioner cut through a fair chunk of the plants and the ones that weren't cut down were being swept out into the vacuum that was Mercury. Quickly donning the suit that was kept inside her herc, Adriana tried rushing for the exit in her herc only to have the legs cut out by the executioner's deadly guns. Laying in the mangled wreakage, her body wracked with pain she watched helplessly as the executioner slowly advanced. So hurt was she, so aggrieved at the destruction of her work, she had no desire to fight. Slowly, she became aware of a small rose that had become rather obstinate in departing into the void of space. Reaching through her windowless cockpit she plucked it from the soil and marveled at its strength and its beauty. Slowly, she found the energy to fight, found the will to live, found the desire to protect what little beauty she could. Struggling out of her herc, she watched as the gigantic executioner lumbered near. Setting the reactor to overload, she fought the ever-present rushing of air to get away fromt the imminent blast. As the executioner stepped on the remains of the minotaur, the reactor detonated with a silent sound in the now vacuumous void of her botanical centre. She ducked away from the blast as heat and the shockwave washed over her. As she looked back, she saw the executioner still on its feet, barely. It had a huge gaping hole in its left leg, and most of its weapon mounts were blown off or a mangled wreck dangling from their mounts. However, one weapon was still apparently operational: a menacing autocannon. As the hulk limped near Adriana she danced away from the hail of bullets the mammoth spat out. She ran and ran, keeping just out of reach of the sling of bullets. Finally, she found herself cornered and the hulk limped towards her, trying to get its ATC aimed upon her. Starting to cry she closed her eyes and stood defiantly in front of it, expecting at any moment to be vaporized in a hail of lead. Waited, waited, waited. Nothing. Looking up, she saw the many-barreled part of the gun spinning madly but nothing coming out.

It was out of ammo.

And then a miracle happened. The executioner tripped. It tripped upon a massive root of a tree that had been ripped out of the ground by the vacuum. This was all it took to rip the remaining part of its leg completely off. It seemed to hover for a second, then plummet like a comet to the ground. The impact so forceful it knocked Adriana down, and out.

Upon her awakening the executioner was still there; the pilotform had started to crawl its way out of the massive, beetle-shaped herc. As it slowly freed itself from the remains of its herc, she grabbed it and swung it as hard as she could against the body of the executioner. It twitched a few times, and then appeared to die.

This is where the centre's internal power cut out. All cameras quit functioning, only the emergency lighting worked. What is known is that two weeks later an executioner, with an obviously rigged left leg, an odd attachment to the front of the executioner, and sporting a minotaur's transponder, was seen in the vicinity of the Antipode Medical Response Station. Little has been seen or heard since of this mysterious executioner.

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