by Isaac Hooke
Will and Horatio hopped down as the two bioweapons entangled.
She stared at the pair in amazement. “I thought you left?”
“You didn’t think we were going to let you have all the fun, did you?” Will said, a huge smile on his face.
Gizmo swooped low overhead, buzzing in agreement.
The big Hydra tore free of the smaller bioweapon and spun toward the three of them.
“Ah, crap,” Will said.
The trio scattered in multiple directions.
The Hydra plowed straight toward Rhea. She had nowhere to run… desperate, she leaped into a partially crushed cargo container. It had been rotated on its side, so she was forced to vault across the furniture and other personal effects that were strewn about.
A leonine head darted inside behind her.
The container proved relatively long, but unfortunately it terminated in a dead end. She took a final bound over an overturned couch that blocked her path and spun around in midair to unleash several quick shots from her pistol. When she landed, she ducked, and the head snapped at the air above her.
Its neck slammed down and she flattened herself; the neck struck the upturned couch, halting its descent, sparing her from being crushed. The neck retracted, then those gaping jaws came plunging down upon her, and she rolled to the side. The pistol snagged on a tooth and was torn from her grasp and swallowed.
Again and again that head lunged, and Rhea rolled left, then right, then left again, barely avoiding the strikes each time.
The leonine head retracted, pausing to assess the situation. Studying her.
Then it struck again.
Once more she rolled away.
Could use some help here, Will, she sent.
Working on it… Will transmitted. You know it still has four other heads we have to deal with, right?
The metal of the cargo container moaned overhead.
She risked an upward glance and realized the container was slowly collapsing, crushed from above as the Hydra applied pressure with a leg, or its body.
Motion at the periphery of her vision told her the head was coming in again, and she barely leaped aside.
The metal continued to squeal above as the roof slowly compressed. She wouldn’t be able to stay here much longer. The Hydra was blocking the way out, but she knew it would have to withdraw momentarily, unless it wanted to be crushed as well. The problem was, its head would probably retreat only a few meters, just enough to clear the collapsed section, so that when she followed, she’d step into its waiting maw.
Sure enough, the head withdrew. She peered past the topmost edge of the couch. As expected, that leonine head was eagerly waiting for her.
A big section of roof collapsed, and a metal brace broke away. It bounced on the floor in front of her. It was a little longer than her arm, and the broken end formed a sharp triangle, like a machete. Or sword.
A sword…
On a whim she scooped up the brace from the wreckage, gripping it at the base like a sword. Then she pulled herself onto the couch and leaped off before the roof could collapse completely and trap her inside.
The waiting head struck.
Still in midair, Rhea plunged the brace forward, aiming for the eye. She felt a moment of resistance when the tip made contact, but the feeling subsided almost instantly and the brace plunged inward, sliding into the brain case. The head continued forward, driven by momentum: the gaping maw struck her, but there was no crushing force behind it.
She crashed into the couch behind her and the head rolled lifelessly to one side, releasing her. The metal brace remained firmly lodged in the eye socket, embedded almost up to the base. The head didn’t get up.
She heard howls from outside. The neck withdrew rapidly, dragging the head with it before she could retrieve the brace.
“What did you do?” Will sent.
“Stabbed it in the eye with a piece of wreckage,” Rhea answered.
She shucked off her backpack and retrieved the only weapon she hadn’t yet given out, one she’d nearly forgotten: the X2-59. She’d kept it because, as a bladed fighting implement, she hadn’t really considered it a real contender. After all, it was much easier, psychologically at least, to fight the Hydras from afar, herding the creatures into one another with energy weapons, rather than closing with them to engage with a blade. She’d told herself the X2-59 would barely cause any damage anyway and wasn’t worth the risk.
She’d been wrong on both accounts.
It’s time to stop running. Time to take the battle to them.
She strapped the X2-59 onto her wrist. She felt afraid yet determined at the same time. A part of her wasn’t looking forward to close quarters fighting with these creatures. Another part yearned for it.
She deployed the blade. It erupted from her wrist, reaching to a length of almost one-point-five times that of her arm. The electrolasers activated, enveloping the blade in bright blue plasma that sparked across the surface like electricity.
She resolutely strode forward and left the cargo container.
Unsurprisingly, the Hydra was waiting for her.
One of its heads immediately bore down upon her.
She calmly dodged to one side and sliced down with a sword form she instinctively knew. The head flopped away, partially severed.
That sword form was called Parting the Wind.
How did I know that?
Another head came in. She leaped upward, landed on top of the muzzle, and stabbed the blade with another instinctive form, striking the left eye at just the right angle so that the tip passed all the way through the brain case to emerge from the opposite socket. That sword form was called Threading the Needle.
She withdrew the blade and leaped down as the head dropped lifelessly beside her.
In that instant, a memory flashed into her mind.
She was on an ice world. Clad in a spacesuit, she wielded a pair of glowing, translucent disks, one per gloved hand. She was rushing an ice shelf, sprinting directly into the incoming fire that came from those in cover behind it. She deflected the shots with the energy disks as she ran, and when she reached the shelf, she leaped over it. The lighter gravity allowed her to easily clear the icy mass, and she swiveled the glowing circles down to protect herself.
When she landed on the other side, she attacked her enemies, using the edges of the disks to puncture their spacesuits in turn. She saw herself reflected in their mirrorlike faceplates. Her own faceplate was clear, and she could see the sheer determination written all over her features; that, and the eyes glinting with bloodlust.
She moved systematically among her enemies, somersaulting and flipping. She transitioned entirely to offense, transforming the discs into twin blades of energy, and cycled through the sword forms, striking down mercilessly.
And then she was back upon the ruined street. The whole memory had flashed through her mind in the span of a second.
Good thing she had been gone for no longer, because another head was fast bearing down upon her.
This time, she had time only to leap aside. Then she ran underneath the Hydra and sliced into its hock with her plasma-coated blade. The bioweapon roared in pain.
Rhea darted for the next leg, but the creature was already trying to crush her by lowering its underbelly. Wearing a feral grin, she stepped out from underneath and sliced the blade upward, cutting a gash into its side. Then she leaped upward, landed on the crook of a bent leg, and jumped again, so that she stood upon its back.
The Hydra arose and swept those stinging tentacles down upon her. She bounded forward and out of the way with a flip and landed near the base of its tail. That particular appendage was about half as thick at the base as any of the necks the creature sported—something her bladed weapon could readily sever.
Baring her teeth in a wicked smile, she leaped off. She swung the blade, striking at the tail as she descended, and completely cut it from the body.
She landed rolling in the rubble and t
hen scrambled to her feet.
Blood erupted in spurts above her, and the creature wailed in pain before collapsing. Its heads swayed back and forth, sometimes endeavoring to strike at her, but she’d moved well beyond their reach. The creature kept trying to stand as well: the Hydra would stagger and lurch on wobbly feet, but without a tail, it invariably lost its balance and crumpled. Eventually it just gave up and simply sat there, swaying its heads, wailing.
She almost felt sorry for the Hydra then.
Almost.
Two more bioweapons abruptly crashed into the stricken Hydra from both sides and knocked themselves out.
Will and Horatio had apparently been acting as the bait for these latest creatures, because the pair appeared a moment later, coming to her side.
“Nicely done.” Will nodded at the blade. “Where can I get me one of those?”
She smiled, then dashed to the other two Hydras before they could get up, and she cut off their tails in turn. She returned to Will and Horatio and watched as the screaming creatures tried to stand. Like the bigger bioweapon, without tails the Hydras kept losing their balance and finally gave up.
She broadcast over a general channel: “Defenders of Rust Town: if you have bladed weapons, use them. Cut off their tails. That’s their weakness. Without a tail, they can’t even walk, and will eventually bleed to death.”
The blood spurting from the tail region of the first injured Hydra had reduced to a mere trickle by then, and on cue, the creature lowered its remaining heads and closed its eyes.
The cries of the remaining two creatures would attract other nearby bioweapons, of course. It wasn’t worth the trouble to cut off their heads—more bioweapons would already be incoming.
Sure enough, an alert sounded on her HUD, courtesy of Gizmo. Glancing at her overhead map, she saw two groups of incoming red dots approaching from the north and south.
Rhea grimly turned toward the south, where the bigger group awaited. Plasma-coated blade at the ready, she took off at a run to intercept.
She weaved over and between the debris and kept running as she reached the Hydra in the forefront. She sliced through the hocks of its rightmost legs and severed a portion of the tail—the base of the appendage was too high to reach from her current position on the ground.
She dodged the snapping jaws of the next Hydra and leaped onto the associated neck; she sprinted to its back and crossed to the tail, avoiding the other heads along the way. She slid beneath those stinging tentacles, and then severed the tail at its base before leaping to the next Hydra.
As she made her way over the creatures, dodging and cutting as she did so, she noticed Will and Horatio following on the rubble alongside. Will had procured a scrap of metal to use as a blade, as had Horatio. They weaved in and out, cutting at the hocks.
And then, just like that, she severed the tail of the last of them and leaped down. She continued running for several paces before turning around to survey her grisly handiwork.
She was almost amazed by the carnage she’d caused. Seven Hydra lay sprawled in a line, wailing as they struggled repeatedly to stand. They bled profusely. Only the first remained on its feet, but it stumbled away, hemorrhaging from a tail that had been cut in half.
Rhea continued to cut off tails wherever she went, putting her electrolaser-enhanced blade to good use. After Rhea had sent out her latest broadcast, criminal gang members began coming out of the woodwork, and distributed bladed weapons of all kinds to the fighters. Swords. Machetes. Long daggers. Some of the blades were even enveloped in electrolaser plasma like her own.
Meanwhile, those who could not fight, or were too afraid to, were back to climbing the walls of Aradne, no doubt much to the angst of the city’s rulers. The city was forced to continue supplying rescue flyers, and of course they had to grant asylum to any who made it to the top of the wall.
And so, she continued fighting, doing her part to reduce the population of Hydras that infested the city. She was soon covered in the blood of her enemies, but she fought on, seeking out any hotspots, and giving aid where she judged her help was needed most. Will and Horatio were never far from her side. Bardain, however, liked to stray.
She received a message from her former trainer, at one point.
“Girl, I could use your help,” Bardain said.
She glanced at her overhead map. Bardain was in a hotspot a few streets away, surrounded by six bioweapons, and more were quickly on the way.
Rhea dropped everything and made her way to him.
When she arrived, she saw he had retrieved a machete from somewhere, and kept weaving in and out between the massive legs of the bioweapons, carving wounds into their feet and slowly wearing them down.
Rhea dashed forward. The nearest creatures had their backs to her, so she rushed the closest and climbed up its tail. When she reached the top, she severed the tail. The stump waved violently, tossing her forward. She landed on the ground and had to roll away before those heads could strike her.
She raced underneath the next bioweapon, joining Bardain.
“You made it,” Bardain said. “Good. Now we can kick butt.”
Bardain served as a distraction, threading in and out between the legs of his enemies, while Rhea swung onto the backs and cut off the tails. However, the bioweapons kept coming. She found it hard to keep up.
“We’re going to need some reinforcements, here,” Rhea transmitted, marking her location on the overhead map.
A head struck her in a glancing blow, and she slammed into the side of another bioweapon, before sliding to the ground. She rolled away as more heads came at her and ended up beside Bardain once more. They moved together, doing their best to avoid the attacks as they passed beneath each Hydra.
The Hydras developed a new strategy: they formed a circle around the pair and squatted down, forming a solid barrier of flesh that neither Rhea nor Will could slip under.
“Well girl, looks like this is our last hurrah,” Bardain said. “We always knew we’d die today.”
“Hold on!” Will sent. “We’re almost there!”
No matter where Rhea and Bardain turned, there was always a bioweapon waiting for them. Blood gushed everywhere as they danced about, maiming every appendage that came at them from the perimeter of that deadly circle: tentacles, stingers, talons, feet, heads. But the bioweapons were ruthless, and always there was another appendage coming in, another death blow, usually launched from multiple sides.
Rhea fought her hardest. She wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t give in, no matter the odds.
But eventually the inevitable happened, as Bardain knew it must. As she knew.
After barely deflecting two talons, and dodging three lunging heads, several stinging tentacles wrapped around her body. They twisted her every which way.
At the same time, more talons came in, slicing and dicing.
She died.
31
Rhea awoke, taking a deep breath through the gills that lined her sides.
Gills?
She looked down upon herself, and flexed limbs that were tentacles. She was floating in a green vat of liquid.
So, she had been reborn as an alien after all. And yet, she still had her memories. She remembered dying just as if it were yesterday. She remembered Will, Horatio, Bardain, and everything it meant to be human.
If she was an alien, she would find a way back to Earth, she swore she would, and then she’d make contact. Assuming these aliens even had the technology for interstellar travel. Things weren’t quite looking good in that department: tentacles weren’t really the best for building a civilization with.
At least her death hadn’t been for nothing. She had died fighting for the people of Rust Town. Still, she wondered how many of them had even noticed her sacrifice, save for Will, Horatio and Bardain.
She just wished she knew the outcome of the fight. The residents seemed to be winning before she died, but that didn’t mean they had emerged victorious in the end. Even if they h
ad, Rust Town would have paid a high toll in blood.
The thought made her want to return to Earth all the more.
I’ll find a way.
Then again, for all she knew, hundreds of years had passed before she was reborn. Time likely worked differently after death. Especially the time between death and rebirth.
Before she could ponder these ideas further, the world went black once more.
She opened her eyes to a bright light. She squinted and raised her tentacles to shield her face.
No, wait. These weren’t tentacles. But fingers. Hands. Arms.
She glanced down at herself.
She was human again. Or cyborg, rather, judging from the metal sheen her body possessed. A bad dream?
“Sorry about that.” Will entered the light, his head and torso partially blocking the illumination. “We had to put you in a temporary cyborg body, since your brain case had cracked. We jury-rigged an octopus robot from the local menagerie to serve as that body. Hope it wasn’t too much of a shock.”
“For a second there I thought I’d been reborn as a bioweapon,” she said. “Or an alien.”
Will laughed. “No. Sorry to give you a scare like that. You weren’t meant to wake up in there. As soon as we noticed you were conscious, we put you under again immediately. Anyway, we got your brain case repaired, and reinstalled your mind. We dressed the artificial skin, giving it time to heal, and also replaced the rest of your body—the last one was fairly trashed.”
She looked down at herself again. She was lying on a table. She hadn’t noticed before, but her body did look different. Shinier. The limbs appeared thicker, yet also sleeker. Had to be more powerful. Her right arm had the X2-59 attached. She deployed the blade, and watched the electricity spark across the surface, courtesy of the electrolasers.
Seeing the weapon brought back the memory that had flashed into her mind during the fight. She saw herself racing across the ice world once more, taking out attackers hiding behind the ice shelf.
“Hey, put that away before you hurt someone!” Will said.
