The Coffin Club

"You're a little puzzle box, aren't you." Broil's smile was warm. Their tone was joking. It made Wrench's skin crawl.

The room was more appointed at this point; a bed to lie on, cushions to sit on, sheets, a fan, books. Small things, small comforts. Wrench wanted to be anywhere else. He wanted to grab Broil's neck and squeeze and shake until he broke every bone and blood vessel in their head. Instead he lay down on the bed, curled ...

"I learned how to fix vehicles in basic. Three for me."

"KP duty for me. Wasn't good at it. Two for me."

"We have machines for that."

"The old boss was a slave to image, what can I say."

"Never married. Tried. Ordered a wife. It didn't...work. Four for me."

"Dislocated both my arms once as a child. Three points."

"Oh, fuck yes. Uh. Shit. I got knocked off a building once, when I was a teen, and nearly died. They had to rebuild ever...

It was less complicated than he expected. An Angel was someone who chose to forsake the TEF and commit themselves to undoing the damage done, act as the messenger or weapon of Atlas and Argenta. It was all in vague terms, forsaking, committing. Wrench rolled the ideas around in his mind, but kept his mouth shut for a while longer.

Broil had started teaching him card games. That was taking up his attention these days.

"It's simple."...

Broil remained silent until four more cards joined their sibling in the hat. No clearing of his throat, no preamble.

"This is what it can be like, forever. You and I are special, all us former Terrans; we live until we choose not to. Time stops meaning anything. In here? It means even less. They have me watching you for two reasons. First: so you don't go crazy from isolation. Doesn't work, plus it's not helpful or good for you. I'...

"Lieutenant Wrench. 3202133."

"Yep. You sure are, bud."

The two of them sat in a plain, empty apartment, right on the floor. Wrench held his knees tight against his enormous frame, back to the wall, posted up in the corner. His eyes were locked on his roommate, a man who called himself Broil.

Broil clearly wasn't TEF anymore, if he ever was one.

Bald head, slim build, curious eyes, small hands. A comfortable set of robes and slippe...

"Ohhhhh my god you're being so dense, just listen to me, okay? So Thomas and Aaron were dating this guy, Marrow, and were like bringing him into the polycule, right? So they've got him over for dinner, they're roasting lizard, you know how they do, and they're like "so which settlement do you live in?" and Marrow's like "oh I live out in Greenfield". And Louise is like "oh I heard Greenfield is kind of a shithole from the beanstalk...

"Pilot understands the question. Question is irrelevant. There is only the data for Pilot to interpret. There is only the field of battle. The inside of Lovely. That is all that matters, yes. How Pilot came to this war does not matter.

Pilot can speak of war, yes. They don't like it when Pilot does but Pilot can. Pilot can tell you what it would have done if it was told to destroy the Beanstalk.

...it didn't. Pilot was not yet born...

"...what caused the Beanstalk to fall? Shit, I don't know. That kind of thing is luxury to think about, isn't it?

Let's look at it this way: I've lived in Lombard in Snapfield all my life. We had a city here once, Callis City. When the Beanstalk fell, it rained panels from the walls of the thing. They landed on Callis City with enough force to knock over the big buildings and kill thousands. Mass evacuation. Entire thing in disarra...

"Hear me and hear me well, faithful: I know what it is like to be a pilot.

You see this frail and ravaged body. I won't say I am not old and used. But I survived the Boren Front, and that's a hell beyond any of your reckoning. It was these hands that controlled my Colossus, Beautiful Nemesis, for the glory of the Nation of Selvich.

It was my guns that brought the fury of Selvich to the capitol of Borenstadt. I may have been one voi...

"My family were farmers. We used to raise, uh, staple crops overseas in the Whitespring Republic. My grandfather, before he passed, used to talk about how it was a hard life, but a good life. How they used to take care of their workers and pay fair wages for the crops they harvested.

My grandmother was a different story and much less nostalgic. And she outlived him, heh. So. She got the last word, I guess. We only survived because ...

"Yeah man, everyone knows aliens did it. Everyone knows aliens blew up the Beanstalk.

Check it: we got the Meld, right? Where the fuck did that come from? Wasn't here when we had like, governments and shit. Nah man like. They saw the Beanstalk and realized we were a threat, right? The little monkeys deciding to poke at the stars with their fighting machines and shit. Maybe we'd climb up there and start colonizing the stars. I don't...

"What's most important to understand about the war is that there was an intentional omission and destruction of context. We know the war started. We don't exactly know why or who threw the first punch.

We do know what the opening salvo was: cutting down the Beanstalk.

Given...recent intelligence, I'm unsure the intent of the Beanstalk was to send things off-world back to somewhere else. But that's baseless, fruitless speculation. T...

"Did she ever call her goddess again?" Sister Zlata hugged her knees close as she sat on the stool.

The rest of the novice sisters had left the lecture and gone to do chores. Zlata had remained behind to ask questions. Sister Charity didn't much mind; it was a sign of a healthy mind and good faith.

"Nope. From what the texts tell us, she survived the war and settled down to rebuild the Temple with a new congregation. She lived late...

The history books talk clearly about what happened next after the Scourging of Roden.

The Emperor was survived by his mother, Lady Belhaine, his bastard teen son, Volkan of Wrought, and his adopted cousin Firhardt of Tessalan. The members of the Inner Council had their own surviving heirs as well who laid claim to their seats (or, if they were bold enough, laid claim to the destroyed throne).

Thus began the Succession Wars, where B...

It was a cold, slate grey day the morning they killed the Emperor and his Inner Council.

There had been a light rain the night before. The two of them awoke to a layer of slick dew on all of their possessions. Nia busied herself with mopping it up as Argenta set up the mortar, loaded the munition. She whistled as she did her preparations. The noise made Nia's hair stand on end.

The wind was measured. The sight lines were ranged. Th...

The backup weapon looked like if you carved a sitting three-legged dog out out of a hunk of metal. Nia had known about cannons, distant weapons some theorized that they could one day be brought to bear in war. Argenta had said the "mortar" was like a cannon, down to the munitions inside, but Nia didn't know what a munition was or what a cannon looked like.

It was a silly, small apparatus to see parked on a hill with their cart and ...

The star was a small box with a handle to hold or anchor for a latch. Falling from the stars scorched its casing; they had to wait until it cooled before they could dig it out of the hillside. Nia would glance at in the back of the cart and flinch away.

It reminded her of a child's casket.

The strider plodded along through the forest, her goddess at the reins. Within the dawning of the next day, they were out of the woods and onto ...

They ambled through the forest on a stolen cart. The city burned in the distance behind them as they rode in silence, lit by the light of the moon. The strider was nervous, but Argenta would click her tongue in such a way that it would listen and continue without fuss.

The first time she did that, Nia stared at her in surprise.

Her goddess smiled. "I grew up on a farm."

Questions on questions on questions bubbled up. What farms are...

"Pick it up."

Mother Argenta told her how to bypass the Head Sister's locked door; her voice followed throughout the building. She pointed her at the bookshelf, told her how to move it to the side. There was a safe on the other side, something she'd only seen in banks, but smaller.

Mother Argenta told her how to open the safe as well.

Inside was a long branch of black, polished metal with wood on one end. It was cold to the touch, ...