<strong><em>Grendel remembers...</em></strong><br/><br/>The War ended, as all wars do eventually.  The Imperium 'won' more than the other polities, if won was the right word, as it always did.  Ripli had not been blamed for the secrets that won the Zhodani an Imperial battle squadron.  What was one minor battle to the enemy in a war the Imperium won?  And no one could stand up to psionic interrogation for long.<br/><br/>Since the Imperium would not blame her for the massacre, Ripli blamed herself.  It was the door chime that found her sleeping among empty bottles on a planet that barely qualified as an X-boat station.  She stumbled for the rusted doors, ready to take out some frustrations on whoever disturbed her at this ungodly hour of the local day.<br/><br/>The door opened to reveal<em>her</em>.  The Emperor Strephon himself would have been less surprising.  It took a few seconds for the surprised Ripli to come up with a response.  The blow took the Zhodani witch to the ground.<strong>"Didn't see that coming, did you, Interrogator."<br/></strong><br/>She was choking back tears but not offering the slightest defense,<strong>"Yes, I did."<br/></strong><br/>Ripli beat her to death.  Or would have but the mind-slut's awareness healed her.  So Ripli beat her again and the Zhodani healed again but more slowly and haltingly.<em>This is more pleasing</em>, Ripli thought,<em>I can kill her several times over.  That is, it I don't get exhausted by the sheer effort of it before she no longer has the psionic strength to heal.<br/></em><br/>When the blood-soaked lump was trying to stitch its bones back together, Ripli was bandaging her knuckles and wondering why her powerful enemy didn't resist.<strong>"I'll leave it to you.  I can beat you to death, shoot you or turn you into the authorizes.  You might prefer my mercies to the Imperium's."<br/></strong><br/><strong>"You won't do any of that."</strong>the mouth said, dribbling out blood.  "<strong>I was <em>in </em>you.  I spent a lifetime of memory with you.  I know you better than a brother or lover."</strong>Some more choking and then,<strong>"I love you and you love me.  You just don't know it yet."<br/></strong><br/>Maddened that the teep had mistaken her traitorous sexual attraction for true love, Ripli cradled the other's woman's bloody neck, ready to break it a precise way.<strong>"You are lying or just plain wrong and about to find out just how much."<br/><br/></strong><strong>"One of us is."</strong>said the lips, her larynx not squeezed as it should have been by a detached pro.