Thanks to Jeanne's massive misunderstanding, a heavy silence settled between the two of them once more. The Doctor, thoroughly bewildered by the Saint's dramatic vows, was currently chewing on her lip, fighting a losing battle against a massive urge to laugh out loud.
"If your condition isn't actually fatal, would you mind terribly not delivering your updates with such a chilling flare for the dramatic?" Jeanne snapped, casting a deeply embarrassed, irritated glare at the hooded figure across from her. "That phrasing was practically engineered to make someone assume the absolute worst. Fine, go ahead and laugh! Get it out of your system!"
The moment the permission left Jeanne's lips, the Doctor burst into a clear, ringing laugh. Jeanne could only sit there and watch her crack up, internally wondering if Babel's leftover decor from Kal'tsit's mock funeral was still lying around somewhere. Maybe she should dust it off and set it up for this jokester instead.
Fortunately, the Doctor's amusement didn't last too long. Her chuckles gradually subsided, and within a few moments, she smoothed her expression back into a serious, business-like mask, though her eyes still danced with lingering mirth.
"To be completely honest, it has been an incredibly long time since I last laughed like that," the Doctor admitted, her shoulders dropping as a wave of genuine relief washed over her. Even her voice sounded lighter, stripped of its usual calculated weight.
If the strategist had previously moved through the camp looking like she carried the crushing weight of the world on her back, she now looked unburdened enough to float straight off the floor.
"But despite my lighter tone, the physical reality remains quite grim. My health has deteriorated to a point where a single careless mistake could hand my soul straight over to the Reaper. Even when I finally submerge myself into that specialized life-support capsule—which, let's be honest, looks remarkably like a high-tech coffin—I have zero certainty regarding what state my mind and body will be in when the cycle concludes."
The Doctor sighed, a trace of melancholy creeping back into her tone. Her initial strategy had been to push her physical limits for just a little while longer before surrendering to stasis. She simply couldn't bring herself to abandon the organization when their collective survival remained so deeply fragile.
"Is the process truly that volatile?" Jeanne braced her elbows on the desk, her brow furrowing. This was a crisis where her personal strength offered zero leverage; her understanding of advanced medical science was a total blank, leaving her with no choice but to sit and listen.
"It's a walk in the park!" the Doctor chirped, her tone turning instantly airy, as if the individual with one foot firmly planted in the underworld wasn't her at all. Her composure didn't offer a single crack.
"You really are something else..." Jeanne muttered, staring at the absolute indifference radiating from the woman. She was entirely at a loss for words, half-suspecting the strategist had simply given up on her own survival.
"Putting your health aside for a moment... how exactly did you and Theresa plan to orchestrate her demise? Surely you weren't planning to have a core Babel agent execute the strike?"
Jeanne consciously steered the conversation away from the terminal pathology. The Doctor was going to be locked away in that stasis pod for several years anyway; for all she knew, she might end up being the one who had to personally breach the facility and haul the woman out when the time came.
"We simply intended to engineer a flaw in our defensive perimeter, allowing an assassination squad dispatched by the Regent's faction to successfully penetrate the inner sanctum. Theresis routinely floods our sectors with highly trained agents, many of whom disguise themselves among the waves of displaced refugees we take in."
The Doctor shrugged casually. Since that entire grim plan had been systematically torn to shreds the moment Jeanne agreed to help, there was no harm in laying out the mechanics. The only absolute requirement was ensuring Kal'tsit remained entirely in the dark.
As for the hostile agents currently embedded within the refugee ranks? Once they returned to the primary base, she would simply dispatch a few specialized vanguard units to quietly neutralize the cells. They no longer possessed a single avenue to achieve their objective.
"What a... terrifyingly blunt strategy," Jeanne managed, entirely stunned. A mythical King of the Sarkaz, an entity capable of manipulating the collective consciousness of her entire species, falling to a standard refugee assassination plot? If anyone else had proposed such a narrative, Jeanne would have assumed they belonged in an asylum.
Yet, hearing the sequence directly from the Doctor, Jeanne could detect a massive amount of deflection. The narrative practically screamed that a massive conspiracy was afoot. If the plan had been executed, the Doctor would have instantly become the primary target of absolute suspicion across the entire frontier.
And if she had vanished into a secret stasis chamber immediately following the Queen's demise... the surviving Babel vanguard would likely view her actions with extreme hostility. Aren't you even a little terrified that your own people would refuse to track down your pod and wake you up? Jeanne thought.
"We lacked the luxury of alternatives. Our timeline was incredibly compressed, and our operational variables were severely restricted," the Doctor stated, waving her hand dismissively. If they had possessed the luxury of choices, they never would have looked toward such a devastating resolution to break the stalemate.
"But none of those dark variables matter anymore! Now that we have your personal commitment to our cause, why on earth would we require Theresa to perish in an assassination plot? We will be relying heavily on your strength moving forward."
Sensing that the conversational atmosphere had grown entirely too heavy, the Doctor adroitly pivoted to a highly casual, playful tone, leaning in close to Jeanne to whisper a wave of overly familiar flattery.
Jeanne's face twisted into an expression of absolute, unadulterated disgust as the strategist pressed into her personal space. Without a word, she raised a hand and firmly shoved the ridiculous commander back to a respectful distance.
"Kindly refrain from using such ridiculous language. I am simply lending a hand. Furthermore, even with my personal intervention, securing absolute victory across Kazdel is hardly a guaranteed outcome."
Despite Jeanne's stern caution, the Doctor's smile remained entirely unfazed. It was a massive understatement; after witnessing the terrifying, world-altering destructive output Fafnir possessed, who could possibly look at the upcoming campaign and project a failure?
"Do you have any remaining inquiries? If we're fully aligned, I am going to retreat to my quarters. Today marks the first time in months where my presence isn't explicitly required, and I intend to capitalize on the rest."
The Doctor's sudden, sharp transition to a completely different train of thought nearly left Jeanne's mind spinning. Staring at the woman whose face practically screamed I want to sleep for a week, Jeanne simply nodded, granting her leave to exit.
"Until tomorrow, then! We will likely need to map out a few critical logistics in the morning." The Doctor pulled her heavy polymer helmet back over her features, rose from her seat, and quietly exited the chamber, letting out a massive sigh of relief the instant the door clicked shut.
She leaned her back against the corridor wall just outside Jeanne's room, remaining perfectly still for a remarkably long time. It was as if an immense, invisible burden was continuing to gnaw at her thoughts. Only after a lengthy silence did she finally push away from the structure, her footsteps sounding distinctly lighter as she walked away.
A long while after her departure, the shadows in a nearby alcove shifted. Kal'tsit stepped slowly into the dim light of the corridor, her gaze fixed entirely on the path where the strategist had vanished, her expression dripping with absolute venom.
She had been standing outside the office earlier and had clearly intercepted the bulk of their high-level discussion. Yet, no matter how aggressively she had interrogated the Doctor afterward—coming within a hair's breadth of launching a physical assault—the woman hadn't allowed a single detail to slip past her lips. She had never expected the two of them to be managing a conspiracy of this magnitude behind her back!
Looking at Kal'tsit's rigid posture, one would assume she was on the verge of hauling the Doctor back by her hood to deliver a severe beating. Ultimately, though, the ancient feline simply stood in the quiet corridor for a long time, doing absolutely nothing before turning on her heel to vanish into her own quarters.
The following morning, the Doctor found herself trapped in an intensely uncomfortable environment. Kal'tsit's overall mood was visibly disastrous; her face was cast in such a grim, unyielding scowl that the strategist felt a distinct prickle of fear just looking at her. She internally racked her brains, completely baffled as to how she had managed to trigger the feline's wrath so early in the day.
When the Doctor noticed that Kal'tsit was actively freezing out Theresa as well, refusing to engage the Queen in anything beyond absolute baseline professional updates, an incredibly ominous sensation flooded her chest. Yet, no matter how carefully she probed, the medical officer refused to yield a single explanation.
"Theresa, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary regarding Kal'tsit today?" the Doctor whispered, keeping her eyes locked on the feline across the command room before leaning over to secure the Demon Kings perspective.
Theresa, whose focus had been entirely consumed by her own administrative duties, lifted her head to briefly observe their companion. Shaking her head gently, she offered a warm smile:
"Not particularly. I cannot detect anything unusual in her demeanor. Perhaps she is simply experiencing a wave of foul temper?"
The assessment made sense; Kal'tsit excelled at masking her internal emotional states behind an unyielding wall of stoicism. Unless an individual possessed a guilty conscience and had spent hours meticulously tracking her micro-expressions—exactly like the Doctor—the subtle shift in her aura was virtually impossible to detect.
As for a foul temper? That was practically a permanent fixture of Kal'tsit's daily existence. It could be triggered by a patient's worsening pathology, a sudden tightening of their operational budget, or any number of minor administrative frictions.
Furthermore, whatever internal storm Kal'tsit was weathering never compromised her structural performance. She possessed a spectacular capacity to freeze her emotions into absolute stillness whenever critical decisions required absolute clarity.
"Right, didn't we schedule a session with Jeanne today to arrange the physical relocation of the Rhodes Island hull?" Theresa recalled suddenly, her gaze scanning the immediate vicinity for their regular guest. "Where has our Saintess wandered off to?"
"She should be arriving any second now," the Doctor replied. Right on cue, her visor caught sight of Jeanne navigating the approach toward the command center.
The Saint was carrying a rather significant bundle—or rather, her arms were locked in a tight embrace around little Fafnir, who appeared to have fallen into a deep, uninterrupted slumber against her shoulder.
"My apologies for the delay. I trust... I haven't kept everyone waiting?" Jeanne asked tentatively, looking at the three figures who seemed to have been gathered around the main terminal for quite some time.
"Not at all, you are perfectly on time. We were simply finalizing a few internal matters before your arrival," Theresa replied with a radiant, welcoming smile. "Let's migrate our discussion to the primary briefing room. There are several critical variables regarding the transport process of the landship where your unique capabilities will be absolutely vital."