Imagine yourself a soldier on Angelsteeth. Part of the rank and file, unremarkable as the hundreds of others who also serve under captains and lieutenants. Techs and maintainers and ships’ gunners. Exhausted from months of living on a base housing a secret that burns like a nuclear core: shore leave banned, every communiqué screened, curbs on who you can see and what you can do. You don’t know when you will next hold your mother’s hand. Rumors swirl, from both inside and outside, about a Chosen One of the Forge, who lives among you and is the reason for the secrecy. You have seen them once or twice, you think, in the vastness of the dining hall. When you started serving you delighted in the idea of being on the front lines, of fighting these evasive Heretics yourself. Finally you would be contributing to the war effort. But the attack from weeks ago still unnerves you. The truth of how close you came to destruction is something you think the higher-ups keep from you. Every thought you think, every action you perform, is dogged by a haze of uncertainty and low-grade anxiety. About your fate, and the fate of the greater world, things you have no control over.

Then space tears open, the way it does when the Heretics come for you, and what emerges is the shape of an alien monster, something you do not recognize. Imagine what you would feel. Imagine the reactions on the ground. The defense systems waking and alarms crying out. The night-shifters and their captains running to wake the guns and aegis. Imagine the fear. Imagine the thought that the Heretics have come to retaliate for their losses, and only doom awaits.

And then the message that broadcasts from the unknown mech, white and blazing in its glory. It says I am Misery Nomaki. Nullvoidsbane, chosen of the Larex Forge, the Ninth Messiah. I have come to lead you in glorious victory against the Heretics. Then the order to stand down, to allow this unknown mech to board the station. The General, guided by their own convictions, deciding to take the risk and believe the words of Misery Nomaki. Deciding to trust that, despite all appearances, this is not a trick.

Angelsteeth took in the archangel Misery Nomaki, and what happened next changed the path of humanity’s future.

Humans are strange creatures. They hang their identity on their sense of self, but so much of it comes from external sources. There are very few whose self-conception is whole and complete within themselves, inalterable by the thoughts and actions and accepted norms of those around them. What rare, extraordinary creatures who cannot be swayed by the desires of their peers and loved ones. There are various names for them. Psychopath, narcissist. Sometimes they are even called Messiah. Let us return to the mind of our dear Misery. I’m sure what you find there will fascinate you.

CHAPTER 20