COUNTER/Weight 28: A Special Kind of Warmth

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Episode description

While Kingdom Come creeps through the dark, the Golden Branch explodes into violence and betrayal. In the peripheries of the sector, the Golden Branch Demarchy, the Hands of Grace, and the Rapid Evening seek to secure the power necessary to survive what's to come. On Counterweight, the Golden Branch's beating heart, Minerva Strategic attempts to undermine its rival, while Ibex's Righteous Vanguard makes its presence known. And in the shadow of September, an unseen threat sails on a sinister vector.

This week on COUNTER/Weight: "A Special Kind of Warmth"

Are you going to just stand still?

Contents

Opening

“

30 days ago, on Counterweight.

The room already smelled musty. The automated cleaner units Orth Godlove left behind did an admirable job of keeping the room free of biological contagions, but they did nothing to make it comfortable, let alone pleasing, to be in. But Ibex brings his own aroma wherever he goes, and within the first few steps of his arrival, the memory den took on a refreshing fragrance. The cleaner bots moved aside, lifting up their air scrubbers like trumpets announcing his arrival.

He puts a hand on the old hero’s head. It’s warm, that special kind of warm that means things could move in any direction if pushed just so. Ibex was familiar with that heat. He practiced controlling it, bringing it from balmy to boiling to bring down a state, cooling it from scorching to sapid to ruin an economy. If you wanted to move history, you had to first learn to be comfortable in that mercurial warmth. He glided from one station to another. The press of a button, the flip of a switch, and then a cord pulled from its socket. And there on the bed, Jace Rethal struggles, desperate to feel cool air.”

Plot

Recap

Austin starts going over the state of the factions after the last full faction turn and their reorganization. Faction goals are reviewed and updated:

Faction Turn Four

Grace and Vicuna move from Garden to Sigilia. They gain access to the book of secrets asset there, which allows them to reroll or force an enemy faction to reroll, like a time machine. A brief scene takes place where Grace and Vicuna agree to mobilize the resources on Sigilia, before Grace activates something within herself. The Hands of Grace also buy psychic assassin assets, who use a version of the Sigilia powers to adapt to negative outcomes with grace.

Minerva Strategic attempt a hostile takeover of Petrichor's resources on Counterweight, poaching their marketing team. The Steigers buy out and dump a lot of Petrichor stock; they also popularize an anti-algorithmic face covering that Minerva, of course, has a back door into.

The Rapid Evening launch a drop pod from Kesh to drill into Minerva XIIa, the manufacturing moon of Minerva XII, with a handful of super soldiers led by Kiva Helsing.

The cast decides that the Golden Demarchy's Demagogue on Gemm is Ariadne, the soldier who Sokrates refused to sell out in the Kingdom game. They roll incredibly high against the Hands of Grace thanks to their Machiavellian tag. Though the planet sends Fortitude's phalanx against Ariadne's demonstration as riot cops, Gerenuk and other members of the formation refuse to properly mobilize against them.

Dre realizes they can put Rigour on September. Rigour learned that strati are developed there from Natalya, and has decided to "shut that shit down". The Righteous Vanguard tries to use their planetary transport lockdown and psychic academy asset to stop Rigour, but both strategies fail. They're meant to fight modern Divines, not Rigour.

Augustus leads a diversionary force onto Joypark so that the Yersinia can slip past Petrichor next turn. Diego is frustrated because Captain Hudson has taken on a mentorship role with Augustus.

Righteousness rallies the popular movement on Counterweight, completely obliterating the Hands of Grace's base on the planet. With this, the Hands of Grace are the weakest major faction in the Golden Branch. Austin decides this episode has been happening concurrently with the last episode; the speech that Ibex gave at the end of that episode was not before a coup but after it had already happened. The statue of Grace in Monument Square has been pulled down, leaving it as rubble at the feet of Peace.

Closing

“

Centralia's Memorial Square has never been a quiet place, at least not since I've been here, since the end of the war. The inconsistent architecture seeks to combine the improbable whirling of Diasporic construction with the focus-tested blocks and spheres of OriCon, every curve so algorithmically studied that it was transformed into a hard line. And all of that built on top of the ruins of Apostolosian marble. The result is a space that echoes sounds in strange, discordant ways. But that day, something strange happened. In the park at the core of Centralia, a new cadence had taken hold. People laughed, and when the laugh bounced from building to building, it didn't twist. It amplified in joy. As vehicles moved by, blasting music through the park and the streets, the songs took the architecture into themselves, so that each note was performed at a new venue, an intimate stage.

And the rumor that day was that he'd speak soon, there where he'd pulled the statue of Grace down, shattered her hold on the Diaspora here in a single symbolic gesture. He'd add his voice to the concert. And then he did. And though I know that this is how it works, I feel that, even now, years later, like he looked at me, looked through me and demanded I see in myself the best version of who I could be. And he demanded I be that person.

Watching Ibex take the stage was a strange moment for all of us on Counterweight. All of the hope and so little vision towards the cost of change. There was one man in the crowd, though — his curly hair already growing back — who knew all too well how expensive transformation could be.

But Jace knew something else, too, maybe better than anyone else on the planet, maybe better than anyone else in the sector. He knew that living the same day over and over was cowardice dressed up in pragmatism. And finally, he was done being scared.

I remember that it was warm that day, a special sort of warm. I remember because, when Ibex pulled away that fake sky, when I looked up and saw the burned atmosphere and the way it distorts the stars, when I saw Weight and all its beauty, I shivered. And then he saw me — Jace did. And the warmth came back. And people cheered, but I barely remember that. I barely remember the speeches or the music or the food or the dancing or that night. But I remember the warmth, and even now I hold onto it. One vice, one gift I let myself have. The warmth.

Addax Dawn, member of the Rapid Evening, signing off.”

Cast

Characters

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