Epilogue

Epilogue

Delilah stood on the edge of a field. To her left were rows upon rows of flowers. Small, red things with black centres. Her hand trailed down to her side and she gently pinched one of them. She imagined that it was soft, but her gloved hands hid any such thing from her.

Behind was a clearing. A wide space hidden by a raised hillside where cars and transports were parked. The media was here, because of course they were, but they were being polite. Professional. Somber.

It was raining.

That was almost always the case, but it felt especially appropriate now. Rain, and a biting, humid cold that clawed at her exposed face.

She’d worn a habit today, one she’d bought from Atyacus for the occasion. Black on black, a white coif and a short bandeau, and a long veil that masked her hair and cut into her peripheral vision, turning the world into a dark-sided tunnel.

It was fine. She pulled her hand away from the unfelt flowers and glanced up.

There were other samurai here. There were a lot of other samurai here. A full quarter of the Vanguard who had participated had shown up. Some members of the German and Asian groups, the Nachtwächternetzwerk and the Keiretsu, had come as well.

Officers, from the various PMCs who had assisted and from the army, politicians, some people who had been on the front lines and who were here for their own reasons. It was a busy place at the moment.

She wasn’t with them. Instead she was here, off and away from the main group, enjoying a field of poppies that hadn’t been here just hours ago. A gift from one of the samurai who understood more about symbolism and meaning than Delilah herself did, but she could understand the thrust of their actions, and appreciated it all the same.

Seven losses, amongst the Vanguard.

Seven dead samurai.

More than was lost in most minor incursions. More lost in a single day than humanity had lost since… well, last week, when the global incursion began in earnest.

The rate of attrition was terrifying.

Normal people had died as well. By the thousands. Some of those flying models had crashed into small towns and poorly prepared cities. A vault, designed to shelter thousands from ordinary incursions, had been crashed into and collapsed. Even now they were pulling survivors from the wreckage and cataloguing those who didn’t.

Delila took a deep breath, then flicked her eyes to the side. A menu came up, showing her the time, weather, and a few other necessities.

“She’s late,” she muttered.

As per usual.

She huffed, very slightly. Her friend… her best friend–as terrible as that particular thought was, what with Franny being… more than friends–was perhaps the least punctual person Delilha had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

“She’d be late to her own funeral,” Delilah said. She tilted her head back a little, letting some of the drizzling rain smatter across her lips and cheeks.

Myalis suggests that Vanguard Stray Cat is on her way. ETA two minutes.

“Thank you,” Delilah said. She wasn’t sure what kind of relationship Atyacus and Myalis had, but she sometimes had the impression that there was a level of… respect there. From Atyacus to Myalis. Did the AI have superiors? A hierarchy? She didn’t think so.

Delilah folded her hands into her sleeves and watched the poppy field sway as she just let her mind… not think too much. It was something she used to do a lot, usually while working on some chores. Dishes, sweeping, anything that didn’t require any thinking.

She supposed that she should have been praying, but she wasn’t in that kind of mood at the moment.

She was pulled out of her thoughts at the sound of an approaching rumble. Another large hover vehicle coming in? There had been a number of those. From people visiting the site, to Samurai landing nearby. Fortunately, the space they’d chosen was quite large, and where there wasn’t a proper parking space, there was plenty of room.

Delilah glanced up at the incoming vehicle, then she did a slight double-take.

It had cat ears.

Or at least, the impression of ears in the way that the forward section’s metal plates were laid out. Subtle, but also very much not. The hovercraft was larger. Far larger than most she’d seen outside of mass inter-city bulk transports.

It came in low and fast, then did a half-spin, tilting up onto its side so that its thrusters slowed it down enough that it could come to a safe landing over the field next to several news vans. Large mechanical legs folded out from beneath the ship, and it came down onto them with a series of hissing clunks.

Delilah started walking over. By the time she arrived, the large ship was fully parked, and she could see some vague movement behind the thick panes of glass in the cockpit at the front.

It took a few long seconds before one of the doors started to open. It was a large bay door, with a stenciled ‘3’ on it. The 3 had cat ears.

Catherine stood within, with Lucy next to her.

The girls were both in dresses. Somber black ones, though Catherine was still wearing combat boots and clearly had a handgun strapped to her thigh. And her skirt was a little short, but Delilah decided to look past that.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey,” Cat replied as she clunked her way down the ramp. “You look the way you usually do when I’m late.”

“I wonder why,” Delilah said, her voice flat.

Cat grinned, unrepentant and amused with herself. “So, uh, funerals. Lucy told me I had to dress up for it, but I think she just wanted me in a skirt.”

Lucy smiled smugly next to her idiot. “Hi Delilah,” she said sweetly. “Nice to see you again.”

“Hi Lucy,” Delilah replied. How did such a sweet young woman end up with such an idiot? Truly, God worked in mysterious ways. “We should head up the hill. Things are going to start soon.”

“Right,” Cat said. She stretched up onto the balls of her feet, then fell back onto her heels. She always had this tendency to stretch this way and that. It was strange, as if she couldn’t just stay still until she grew serious.

Delilah nodded, then allowed herself to fall into some small talk as they made their way over. Yes, Franny was fine, and she was at home. Yes, she was fine with Catherine adding to the parking garage. Maybe her Fury would need repairs one day, so it was a nice addition. No, she didn’t think Catherine’s new mobile mech-deployment platform was too much. Though yes, it was big.

They made their way around the hill and up. Someone had carved steps into the ground, and there were thin stone plates atop each step now. Marble, at a guess. That hadn’t been there earlier, but she couldn’t guess which samurai was responsible.

On reaching the top of the hill, Delilah noticed Catherine’s cocky smile slowly dwindle.

There were seats laid out in rows with a few corridors between them. Room enough for a couple of hundred people, and a lot of that seating was taken up.

Politicians, media, army offices and samurai were mingling. The samurai–some of them–stood out on account of their unique gear and clothes, but a lot of them had dressed up, or down, to better fit the mood. Black was uncommonly common at the moment.

Before and above them was the cenotaph.

The memorial stone was a massive thing, bought by a west-coast samurai called The Dirty Earth Man. Despite that samurai’s name, the cenotaph itself was… pretty.

At its centre was a black stone obelisk. It rose twenty five metres high, about a metre and a half wide and thick, with a tapered top that had some sort of metallic cap above it that gleamed a deep bronze.

Names were carved into the surface, each one no taller than a finger width. There were thousands.