Vex Chronicles 4: Zeal

Investigations

Factory-City-2, spaceport, Minerva's Spear

"One day I wake up and knew that someone has failed to lobotomize me. There was enough left to feel human?" Lita looks at what remained of her body wondering why she felt like speaking about this. "They didn't failed in chopping me up though."

Sergeant Fark Jubelius stared at the servitor. And he looked even more confused than Lita felt. "That..." He rubbed through his shout hair as he searched for words. "That sounds grim." He looked at the others. "Where did that come from?"

"Grim doesn't begin to describe it." Lita continued. "They turned my body into my prison. And all of that still earned me the 'D' addition to my designation."

"D designation?," trooper Sandine Tessa asked.

Lita tilted her head and only stared back. She processed the question. Why did their database not contain the answer already. But then she realized that they didn't even had a knowledge implant like she had.

"D as in 'defect'. My conscious mind made me perform sub-optimal. I was chosen to be relobotomized and repurposed. I am only here because Gerrisat refused to do so."

"So the odd logis saved you?" Sergeant Fark Jubelius asked, more interested in Lita's story than she had expected.

"Yes," Lita replied. "He recognized active brain waves and reconnected pathways, letting me out of my prison. Without him I would not exist. My entire life is dedicated to serve him."

"How can you sound so... happy?" Trooper Holly Sanriza shuddered. "Its cruel."

Lita tilted her head. She just didn't understood why the woman was so upset. "He remade me into my current shape. He saved me from the scrapyard by finding a task I am good at. Logic dictates that it is my duty to reward him with servitude."

"And you are okay with that?" Trooper Holly Sanriza' emotional response indicated anger.

"Why shouldn't I?" Lita was made to be unquestionable loyal. It was what she was. Her personality was a painful defect – one she didn't wanted to loose.

But all such free thoughts were eaten when Lita received the encrypted message in her master's code. She did not even wonder from what odd channel Gerrisat had used to transmit it. All that mattered was that it held orders from her logis.

"I have a message for sergeant Fark Jubelius," Lita said with emotionless voice. "Decryption key required."

Lita could see Jubelius rise his eyebrows through the gunships onboard camera's. He had noticed the sudden change in tone.

"Just Jubelius is fine. And key? Oh yeah... That thing." Sergeant Fark Jubelius slipped his badge into the cogitator's slot and a brief message appeared on screen. And as he read sergeant Fark Jubelius' laid back and bored expression turned hard.

"Are Urik and Meg still out?," he asked.

Trooper Kilroy Caupius nodded.

"Okay, Caupius, Sanriza, gear up. Special mission, civilian attire."

"Alert. Spaceport guard entered threat range." Lita gave her auspex sensors a voice. Armed men moved up the steps toward the landing pad of her parking position.

"Rot!," Sergeant Fark Jubelius called. Then he unhooked two grav-chutes from the wall. "Strap in, jump down the platform and join with the Grandclose guys. I'll distract those guards."

"To do what?," trooper Kilroy Caupius asked.

"Try to get onto Sill's tracks, figure out what happened to them. This is the address of the hidden mission cache they should have established." Sergeant Fark Jubelius pressed a note into trooper Holly Sanriza's hands. "Now get out."