Scrolling white-on-green text showed the last lines of the Centurions’ permanent shutdown command dropping into place. Stroth let out a long breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. It had taken seconds to bring an end to the work of decades, and within minutes every errant Centurion across the galaxy would be inert. The Project was over.
The silence of the exhibition hall was punctured by a sharp click followed by a mechanical whine, and Stroth turned away from the console to see an elegantly-robed silhouette levelling an ornate, long-barrelled pistol at her head. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, she realised it was Baroness Dorn Oramande herself. The incumbent ‘Curator’.
“Baroness,” Stroth began, wary but incapable of preventing a little bile from lacing her tone. “I’m surprised to see you’re not sheltering.”
“When I heard you had broken in here, I had to see for myself,” Oramande explained, confidently matching the intruder’s acerbic tone. “There’s no way Endelle would be so foolish, I thought. But here you are.”
“Indeed,” Stroth conceded, appreciating that it didn’t really matter what she said next. “And now you’re going to kill me, is that correct? I thought you had thugs to do that for you.”
“I’ve thought about this moment ever since the Harthoe incident,” the Baroness spat. “Any closing remarks?”
“Yes, actually,” Stroth answered calmly. “Is that the ceremonial sidearm of the Dothroi Radiant Guard?”
“I hardly think it matters,” Baroness Oramande responded, smirking, before pulling the trigger.
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