by MM Glenn
Faster than it should have taken –assuming the jammer had worked– a second skimmer arrived. He had time enough to see Kaydia coming from one direction, and the doors open from the other, and then something clattered and bumped across the fusion formed floor of the warehouse. Reflexively he covered his eyes with his arm, just managing to block the worst of the glare as the flashbang detonated. Three of the reinforcements cursed loudly, staggering blind from the grenade, and Kaydia gunned one of them down with a triple-burst from her blaster.
"Take him alive!" Tuzza screamed. "Both of them! I want to make an example of them!" In response, the guards that could see drew shock-batons and nerve-sticks, moving to encircle the lone man. Quentin watched them come and tossed his knife aside.
"Surrendering?" one of the guards laughed. "It won't..."
"Nope," Quentin answered, his words almost drowned out by the snap-hiss and hum of his igniting plasma blade. "Just evening the odds." He grinned. "But you boys can walk away now, if you want."
***
They might have just been doing their jobs, and might not have aimed to kill her outright, but Kaydia had no intention of sparing any of these men. She had killed dozens on Tuzza's word, so what were a few more dead bodies to her name? They surrounded Quentin, snickering at the show of his plasma blade.
For a man with a shock-baton, it was his last act. Kaydia hit him in the face with the heel of her palm, driving with enough force to push his nose into his brain. She tore the shock staff from his dying hands and stood with her back brushing against Quentin's. She struck at the nerve-stick that darted out to strike her, knocking it out of his hands. A follow-up roundhouse kick had him on the floor.
Tapping into her psionics, Kaydia connected with Quentin mentally, sensing his movements and adjusting her own to move complementary to him. The two of them moved with a fluid grace, as if they had practiced together for years, instead of having met a little over a week ago. Between the two of them, they were offense and defense, creating opening for the other's strikes. Despite the odds being against them, they laid waste to their remaining foes.
Tuzza moved behind the cover she had set up, pinning them down as he moved towards the skimmer parked outside. "We need to split up," Kaydia suggested, moving along one side of the warehouse, as Quentin made for the other side. With his plasma blade acting as a beacon, he drew Tuzza's fire, but he did fine, ducking and dodging behind cover to avoid blasts. She was within striking distance now; one last sprint would have him in her clutches.
Quentin came from the other side, wielding his plasma blade. Tuzza got off a couple shots, and Quentin had nowhere to hide this time. If he were psionic, he could have absorbed the bolts within the blade, but without psionics, his blade was little more than a beam of light. With a desperate cry Kaydia telekinetically pushed him, slamming him against the wall to just avoid the blasts to his chest.
Tuzza turned just in time to see Kaydia's foot hook behind his ear. He drew a knife as he went down, stabbing wildly until Kaydia followed up her attack. She disarmed him, and, using his own knife, wielded by his own assassin, she opened his throat. Blood spilled out in quick spurts, and he lived just long enough to recognize her.
It took a moment before she realized that killing Tuzza did nothing. No relief from the years of shame and pain he inflicted upon her. Killing him didn't bring back Justiciar Bry-Ta, or return her life to its original trajectory. It was... empty. Revenge couldn't give her peace in this life, but there was something else. Someone else, she thought, as she rushed to Quentin's side.
She couldn't remember the last time she used a psychic strike without intending to hurt her target, and it was possible that in trying to save him, she injured him.
"Are you okay?" She let out a sigh of relief as Quentin began breathing normally again.
"Uuuh..." Quentin gasped. His gaze fell upon the blood on her top, eyes wide, but he relaxed after a moment. Once he figured out the blood wasn’t hers, she guessed. "Haaaah...." he managed, drawing a deep breath. "Yuh... yeah.” He tooks another deep breath. “What... what hit me?"
Kaydia frowned, and looked towards the entrance for reinforcements. "I'll tell you, but not right now. Let's get out of here, get a hold on our situation."
"And, more importantly, who the fuck set us up?"
The words stunned her. Objectively he was right; the timing of reinforcements was too perfect. Yet, the list of people who could have set them up was slim. Linora knew they were going to hit Tuzza, but that was because she had hired them. Hiring them to kill a man, only to betray them seemed a roundabout way to kill them. It didn't make much sense. Besides...
I know what they did to you, Scarlet. I want to help you. No, Linora wouldn't betray her. Linora was her only ally, well, until Quentin came along.
"Let's get out of here, back to my place," Kaydia offered, helping him to his feet, and unable to resist taking his hand in her own.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? We were set up, after all. Someone could be watching your place right now." He gestured around the warehouse. "I mean, sure. They probably didn't expect us to survive this. But still..."
"We could head for my place, instead," he suggested. "Well, my ship actually. I did rent a small place when I arrived, but that's likely to be watched. But... I don't think The Scrapper would be." He grinned. "I rarely visit it, so it shouldn't have attracted attention."
She realized as he spoke that he was still holding her hand. Or was it that she was still holding his? Didn't matter. They'd just made an enemy of the Digital Sun cartel; it was nice to have an ally in him. Still holding Kaydia's hand, he headed for the back of the warehouse and her skimmer.
"Regardless of where we go, we should get out of here. Lie low for a day or two and work out who set us up and why. And then do something about it."
Confessions
Quentin remained silent for rest the trip, lost in his thoughts. When they arrived at the starport he led her through a warren of passages, avoiding the few concourses where passengers gathered to await transport. Finally, through windows that overlooked the exterior of the dome, a squat little ship could be seen. "The Scrapper," he declared.
It was a shabby, patchwork thing of indeterminant origin. Roughly shaped like a flattened cone, with a bulbous cockpit at the tip and turrets on the dorsal and ventral sides, it looked rather more comical than impressive.
The interior, though, belied that impression. It was a gleaming white, clean and well-maintained. The living and crew areas were compact and well-organized. "Here," he said, gesturing to a small bench that circled a table just big enough for two people to eat at. Two friendly people, that was.
Kaydia started, reaching for his hands across the table. "Quentin I... I am the one who hit you, back in the warehouse. When you were running for Tuzza. I didn't think you'd be able to dodge his shots, so I pushed you." A pause and a sigh, "With psionics."
"Before I came here, to Miruta, I was an acolyte in the Order of the Unseen." Saying the words out loud was petrifying, and yet, also a relief. As if she’d finally unloaded the burden she had carried for over a decade.
"I probably shouldn't have told you that, but you make me stupid sometimes. Stupid in a way no one else ever has.” A smirk and a blush crossed her face, before she brushed back her hair and got back to business. “If someone is gunning for us, I might have to rely on those skills, to keep us safe." She was quiet for a while, before blowing out a deep breath. No more secrets.
"When I was seventeen, near the end of my training, my mentor and I were investigating a drug smuggler who may have had ties to the Order of the Unseen. We were captured by the Digital Sun, and..." She stopped for a moment, and the memories came back in a torrent. "They experimented on us, injecting us with drugs until physical addiction overwhelmed our senses. Well, my senses. I became hooked on Inertia and they used my chemical dependence and previous Justiciar training to turn me into an assassin for the Cartel.
"Eventually I broke a
way and got clean, and since then I have been trying to get my revenge. Culminating in this hit against Tuzza, who oversaw my conditioning, and commanded my hits. But...” She shook her head, and stared past him. “But killing him didn't fix everything, like I hoped it would. It didn't fix anything, or make me feel better. And I don't suspect that killing those who set us up –whoever they are– will help us much, anyways.”
"I haven't told you everything about me either, Kaydia " Quentin hesitated, then drew his plasma blade and laid it on the table. "This, for instance, is the casing of an IdasTek weapon. But I gutted it the day I bought it, and rebuilt it." He ignited the blade again, but this time changed its length and shape, abilities only psionics could produce. "I'm a Justiciar, Kaydia.
“You’re a Justiciar?” Tension strained her features, her relief dissipating into concern. Was he here to bring her in? To kill her, before she could use her gift to kill another person?
“Believe it or not. And I can't leave. Not yet. I'm... here on business."
He sighed. "See, when I was nineteen, I went with my mentor on my last mission before my promotion. We were looking for a Justiciar who'd gone missing in the Outer Reach. A Justiciar, and her acolyte." He looked at her. "Justiciar Bry-Ta, and her apprentice. I didn't quite recall her name, but she was a young woman –maybe a year or two younger than me– with the prettiest red hair I'd ever seen."
He sighed and looked away. "Every trail we followed went cold. We gutted the Digital Sun, the Shroud, and the Krystinari organizations across three sectors and found no trace of them –Justiciar or acolyte. We'd have kept going, only we couldn't track them any farther."
Turning back, eyes like roiling waves looked back into hers and he took her hands. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "We failed you. I failed you."
His voice choked, and it took a minute to find it again. "I want to leave with you. Right now. Go... anywhere, as long as it's with you. But I've got a mission to finish. Because I'm after the most dangerous agent the Digital Sun has, Kaydia. A fallen Justiciar, named Linora Sunfell."
"Did you just use me to get to Linora? Was all of this just an elaborate ploy to stay undercover?"
"No!" Quentin cried out, pulling her into an embrace. Then he chuckled ruefully. "I mean, I had looked for an angle to get close to the Digital Sun on Miruta. And working as your back-up did let me do that. But..."
He kissed her forehead. "I wasn't using you. Hell, I didn't know you worked for Linora when I met you. And..." This time, he kissed her lips gently. "That night? After the hit? When we talked and laughed and danced and fucked? None of that was a lie. I wanted to be with you Kaydia, then and now. And tomorrow, and after that."
“But.. You know what I am. What I’ve done. Aren’t you going to… take me out? Kill me? Isn’t that what the Order demands of fallen psionics such as myself.”
He lifted her chin to look into her eyes "I’m not going to kill you. And If I were, would I tell you that I am a Justiciar first?” He released a little laugh, and she let herself relax, just a touch.
“But the Order of the Unseen–“
–if I have to choose between you and the Order... I choose you."
She knew she probably should have asked more questions. Should have tried to have a serious conversation about the information he revealed to her. Should have been more concerned about what it all meant, in the long and short-term. But, she couldn't care. She couldn't care about anything, not after those three last words.
I choose you.
They may as well have been I love you for all Kaydia heard in them. Her arms went around his neck as she pulled him into her, her mouth capturing his in a kiss. A kiss that was not approved by the Order of the Unseen, but what did she care? What did he care? He didn’t, he didn’t care about that. He chose her. After nearly a decade of fearing that she killed the last person to give a damn about her, it felt good to know that she mattered to someone.
That knowledge filled her with a need, a need to feel him inside her. She was ripping off her own shirt as they kissed madly, the weight of their confessions and near death coming off with each piece of clothing. She sought out the feel of his skin, soft fingers groping at his muscles, leaving pink impressions of her need.
Even more, she could feel her own touch through his skin, their sensations blending and bleeding over until distinctions between them were minimal, and meaningless. She hadn’t intended to open an empathic link with him, but she wouldn’t dare close it now.
“Fuck me,” she gasped, and her hands worked at his belt as their mouths came back together. “I need you inside me.” So, as her fingers gripped his manhood, she gasped with sudden bliss, feeling her own soft hands gripping the throbbing organ, pulsing in demand. The dual sensations, both feeling with her hands and feeling his ache in her mind, were confusing and amazing and she moved without thinking. Just feeling.
He leaned into her, his tongue fucking her mouth as she stroked and squeezed him. His hands roamed her back, tugging and tearing at the hooks of her bra before tossing it aside to push her back. His lips closed on her nipple, tugging and sucking, and she shared the sensation with him, letting him experience his lips on her breast through her mind. "Fuck..." he breathed, the air hot on her damp flesh.
With a sudden motion, he rose, his hands slipping under her ass. He lifted her up, kissing her again with a desperate need as he let her drop on the edge of the small table. He tore at her belt and fumbled with her zipper, hungrily biting at her throat and shoulders. "I need you," he groaned, tugging her pants down. "I need you now..." The pants hung up on her boots. He swore, then gave up. More than enough room for what they needed, now.
Quentin's fingers hooked in her panties, tugging them to one side. " I wanted you slowly," he groaned, cock throbbing as she clenched from his nails grazing her slit. "I wanted to make love to you for hours..." With a single thrust, he buried himself to the hilt in her sex. "Later," he gasped, hips rocking as he began pounding himself into her. "Now... I just... need you..!" He pulled her mouth to his, letting her taste his desperate desire for her. Their sensations mingled, so he could feel himself stretching her around his cock through her nerves, taste him fucking her through her mind. "Do..." he moaned, angling his thrusts in response to her wordless cries, "do... you... you feel... it... too...?"
“Yes…” she moaned and admitted, fucking him as he fucked her. “I… feel... it,” she gasped, head thrown back in joyful abandon. “I feel… you. Everything… I feel… everything” She wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the weight of her breasts pressed against his chest. Tongues slid over another’s and filled each other’s mouths. His cock parted her walls, her slit gripped his girth, and their bodies pressed against each other, soft and hard and sweaty and perfect.
"Perfect..." he gasped, giving voice to the thoughts in her mind. "You feel... perfect... on me..." Her tongue filled his mouth, and he subtly altered his thrusts as he felt her need for a different angle. "Perfect... around... me. Perfect... in... me..." Both of their orgasms built, his as a rising tension in his cock and balls and hers as a growing pressure that began in the pit of her stomach and radiated outwards. His cock strained against the silken walls of her slit and his lips savored the salty sweat of her skin and the musk of their mutual lust in the air.
“Cum…cum in me,” she implored, forehead against his, “I want to…feel it… as you do.” The words came in bursts, laced with indulgent cries and breathy rasps. “I’m so… so close….”
"Close..." he echoed, the word a low moan. "I want... want you... to... to feel... me..." His fingers dug into the meat of her ass as he plowed into her. "Feel my... my... cum... filling you..." It was getting harder and harder to speak, harder to think of anything but her body gripping him and the feel of his meat filling her, and her hands and her lips needy on his skin. "Kaydia!" he gasped. "Fuck! Kaydia! I'm... I'm close! Kaydia! I'm... I'm..."
It was hard to tell if his orgasm caused hers, or if hers caused his. Perhaps it happe
ned simultaneously, and escalated from there, with each pulse of his shaft and every tightening of her core. The eruption into her hungry womb, the milking of his cock, it lasted an agonizing forever. All Kaydia could do was hold Quentin tight against her, feeling the sweet sting of her nails biting into his skin.
Even once it had subsided, she rested against him for several minutes, craving his heat and skin against her, craving her own body against his. She didn’t want to disentangle arms or legs or fingers or mouths; she just wanted closeness, that feeling of completion and connection. Pleasantly exhausted in the afterglow of passion, Quentin slumped against Kaydia's sweat-slick skin and she leaned into his shoulder.
"That was... mind-blowing. It's never been so... intense for me before." She rubbed her cheek against his. "Perfect." Repeating what he had said earlier, while he filled her with bliss. "It was perfect."
"Perfect," he repeated as well, then kissed her gently. "You're perfect."
"What do we do now?" Even the afterglow of passion wasn’t enough to conceal the conflicted emotions roiling within her. He had a duty, to bring in Linora, but she couldn’t imagine betraying her.
Quentin forced a smile. "I can sense the conflict in you," he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb.
Embarrassment washed over Kaydia. While there were some obvious benefits to being with a fellow psychic, benefits she was still reeling from, there were downsides too. Like the loss of privacy over her own thoughts. Suddenly she was a self-conscious teenager again, always monitoring her own mind for fear of Justiciar’s Bry-Ta's quiet judgment. Quentin might have said it playfully, but it was still a reminder of the ways she had failed to live up to being a Justiciar.
"And... I don't know. For the first time since... well, since she betrayed me, I don't know."
"So Linora was the pretty brunette who broke your heart?" Kaydia pieced together. She watched as he also struggled with his duty versus what he wanted. Duty, loyalties, they just got in the way. Even more now, she wanted to leave it all behind.
