I reached back and yanked the blade free then sprang to my feet. I gritted my teeth, clutched the weapon in my hands and spun around, slicing the bastard that had stabbed me clear in half.
“A sword, really?” I glanced at the hilt in my hand then dropped the blade. It was more than a little cumbersome in my little hands and I doubted I could keep a good enough grip around the massive hilt to make for a practical weapon. So, I dropped it. I heard screams from the other side of the corridor and I swirled around to face the remaining guards.
I un-holstered my pistols opening fire before any of the bastards had any hope of reacting and screamed out at the top of my lungs. I had responded to my rage and grief by acting on my most primitive impulses to attack with my bare hands. The pistols had remained all but forgotten until that moment, but I made up for their lack of use with a vengeance spewing out phase fire as I spun around in a half-circle.
I took three guards out with my initial barrage and another two, moments later, with a couple more well-aimed shots. That left two guards, one was creeping around behind me with a sword clenched in his hands and the second, whose repeated attempts to blast me with a phase rifle were growing beyond tiresome, stood opposite me on the other side of the corridor.
“First those damned projectile weapons and now swords.” I shook my head as the blade-wielding Qharr came barreling down toward me his weapon cutting through the air with a fluidity and grace that was impressive.
‘They look like ceremonial blades,’ Khala offered up an explanation. ‘Likely ones that have been in their families for generations. They’re not often used in battle, but most are centuries old and have been used to spill blood in the past. I never quite understood why so many warriors bothered keeping them at all, even if the silly things were mounted on a wall or bulkhead, it just seems like such a waste of space. In a way it’s almost refreshing seeing them being used.’
“Oh, yeah, refreshing is definitely the word I was thinking of.”
I ducked out of the way as the pair opened fire, but he managed to slice me across the cheek. The cut was nothing Khala couldn’t handle and sure enough I could feel the telltale signs of her healing ability begin to do its work. The second guard picked that moment to drop his pistol and come charging at me. I slammed a fist into his chest and knocked him aside before returning my attention to the first just in time to see him thrust his blade out toward me. I tried to twist out of the way, but it didn’t happen quickly enough. The tip pierced my temple and went clean through my eye-socket.
He yanked the blade free, and I collapsed to the ground, blood dripping from the now empty socket as I cupped my hand over it. I gritted my teeth and called out to Khala, but was forced to duck out of the way as the blade came crashing down again. This time I only just barely managed to avoid getting hit, and felt a sob escape my lips as I rolled away. If it hadn’t been for Khala I’m sure I would have been a goner.
Even if the injuries wouldn’t have killed me, she dulled the pain just enough for me to keep fighting.. I dove down to the ground and snatched my pistols up then leapt onto my feet, slamming into the nearest of the two guards, before spinning around and opening fire on the one armed with the sword.
The first survived my attack and rammed into me from behind pinning me face-forward against the wall. He was pretty big and unusually strong even for a Qharr, but still not strong enough for me. I broke his grip around my wrists then elbowed him as hard as I could.
He staggered back and I before he could recover I planted an open palm into his chest and sent him careening into the opposite bulkhead. I pulled my gun back out and sent a volley of bolts sizzling into his chest. He didn’t last very long against this new attack and he was dead before his body hit the ground.
I turned away and took a few steps forward, then reached up to touch where the bullet had entered my head. The wound was already starting to heal; I just wish the same could be said for my eye. My hand traced the edges of the socket, which was still empty, and shuddered just before I dropped my hands to my side.
“Please, tell me you can heal that.” I glanced back at Khala whose image was standing in the corridor behind me.
“I can, but you’ve already been injured quite severely. I haven’t yet finished repairing your internal organs a task which is taking a considerable amount of energy. Re-growing an eye is much more difficult than healing wounds. I’ll need to feed on something a little more substantial than the paltry bits of energy I gain from phase blasts.”
“Just keep me fit enough to fight,” I replied before taking off the corridor. Whatever physical harm had been done to me, it didn’t seem to impair my ability to move around, but I had the feeling that had more to do with Khala than anything else. Had I been in a better state of mind I might have been more concerned about my injuries, which sounded quite severe, but at the moment all I cared about was disabling the destroyer and getting my people away safely.
I took off down the corridor and heard the odd snapping sound which indicated footsteps clanging against the organic-resin floor in the corridor behind me. I felt a stabbing pain in my lower back and stop just long enough to pull a long dagger free. I cursed, but didn’t stop to meet whoever had thrown the weapon. Since there weren’t any joined Qharr in their numbers, there was no way they could keep up with me and I quickly outpaced them before they could attack again.
Several times, I heard feet beating against the floor behind me and two times I found myself confronted by a group of guards blocking my access. Fortunately, I was able to disable or kill them and continue on my way before the pursuing guards were able to catch up.
Finally, I came to a stop in front of the engine room, but the entrance was guarded by ten Qharr guards all of which were armed with weapons of the long and sharp variety. Fortunately, I was able to spy them from around a corner and they hadn’t yet taken notice of me. I didn’t see any other entrance, which meant I would need to fight my way in.
‘How are you doing for energy?’ I asked Khala a sudden thought occurring to me.
‘Battling those Qharr and healing your wounds has taken a great deal of my reserves. I’ve drained what I can from your pistols, but can’t risk taking any more. I wouldn’t want to leave us defenseless. If you’re planning anything drastic you may wish to try a more low-profile approach,’ she replied.
‘What about the gravity thing? If you could get me up on the ceiling, I think I could sneak up on them. I would only need a few seconds.’
‘It would be possible, but… difficult. Keep it brief.’
I nodded, then bit my lip and leapt onto the nearest wall and from there I was able to bound up the side of the wall onto the ceiling. It was an oddly surreal experience looking ‘up’ at the floor, but I didn’t let it distract me from my goal. Up until that moment, most of the fighting I’d been doing had been in narrow corridors and hallways which wasn’t exactly the most practical place to try out my abilities. Crawling around on the ceiling was a new experience and I made a mental note to remind myself to practice a few things out. I certainly wouldn’t want to find out the limits of my abilities the hard way.
I flattened myself against the ceiling, crawling toward the cluster of gray skins guarding the door. Apparently, the Qharr didn’t take as take as much pain to sand down their ceilings as they did their floors and walls. Several times my breasts scraped against a piece of hardened resin which was jutting out from the surface at an odd angle. It was rather painful, but I bit my lip and continued on. Any noise I made would reveal my presence to the guards below.
I got into position, then drew my pistols and jumped down into the center of the unsuspecting group. I was able to bring my foot down atop the head of one of the guards, knocking him flat to the ground and rendering the bastard unconscious. I opened fire, the moment my feet touched ground, taking out four guards before any of them were able to counter.
One of the guards drew his pistol opening fire as he caught sight of me. Fortunately, it w
as of the phase variety and only served to give me a slight tingle of pleasure. I jumped up; kicking him in the chest then blasted it full of holes with my phase gun. Another guard attacked me, but this time I felt a flash of red-hot pain as something sliced through the skin of my breast.
I confronted the one who’d sliced me up and sent him toppling into another of his cohorts before moving on to my next victim, a slender lean-muscled female who by coincidence was also missing an eye. She charged me, perhaps hoping to catch me by surprise, but I anticipated her attack and dodged it then kicked her in the back of her legs and sent her toppling into the pair who I had knocked over before. All three collapsed into a tangled heap and I turned to face the final guard who had one of the projectile weapons trained on me.
I jumped out of the way, just as she opened fire and instead of hitting me her shots thudded into the wall. Before she could shoot off another round, I jumped on her slamming my fist into the side of her neck. She screamed, and spun around trying to dislodge me, but I had a good grip and her efforts proved to be futile. I did a somersault flipping above her so that I landed facing her back then drew my guns and opened fire.
The final three guards were still pretty dazed from my prior attacks and I was able to finish them off with a few quick shots. With a weary sigh, I re-holstered my weapon, and made my way into the engine room.
As I had expected, the chamber was pretty large, and like any room constructed by the Qharr the wall were covered in that familiar resin. Many medium-sized and all of the larger ships had two separate engine rooms, one which housed the FTL drive and a second which housed the antigrav engines. Because, both types of engines worked on entirely different principles they didn’t have any inter-working parts and thus were kept in separate compartments.
The easiest way to disable the ship was to cut the reactor coolant line, the problem was that there was a lot of it and I needed to make a gash big enough to drain it quickly, but slow enough to allow me enough time to escape. I found the coolant tank, which was impossible to miss considering it took up almost half the room and followed it until I found the external fuel line. I made an incision which I hoped was big enough, then spun around and found my way into the corridor.
There were about a dozen gray-skins waiting for me, but I didn’t stop to fight instead I put on the speed and leapt over the entire group leaving them behind to choke on my dust. They fired after me, but by that time I’d already put a good distance between us and their attempts were proven futile.
Before long I found my way to airlock, and in moments I was on the other side safely outside the ship. Khala must have been doing something to keep me moving because the moment I stepped inside our ship and the hatch sealed behind me I collapsed to my knees, at Becca’s feet, feeling suddenly drained of energy.
I slid my legs out and leaned against the door, then looked about realizing for the first time that the others looked almost as bad as I felt. It was hard to tell from all the mud, but it looked like they’d picked up more than a few scrapes and bruises since I’d left them.
Rebecca gasped bringing her hand up to cover her mouth and quickly knelt down beside me. “Dear lord, what did they do to you?”
I shuddered and covered my empty eye-socket feeling self conscious under the scrutiny of first my sister then the others. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Khala’s working on it, just get us out of here fast. If I was successful that ship could blow any time and I’d really like to get the hell out of here before that happens.
I stared at my sister and let out a long sigh of relief. “So it looks like you guys had a bit of a party while I was gone.”
“You could say that.” Rayland grinned, hovering over my sister’s shoulder. “We certainly had more fun than the gray-skins who attacked us.”
“Perhaps I should have a look at you. Your wounds look to be most severe,” the doctor said picking my sister up and setting her down a few feet away. “Excuse Vakrexid you were in the way.”
“I told you, I’m fine! I yelled reaching out to push the doctor away, but I was so weak that he didn’t even budge an inch. I could only guess why Khala might have taken away my abilities, but I had a feeling it had to do with my injuries. She’d been bolstering my strength and I think now that I was safe she’d stopped.
“Maybe, I’m in worse shape than I thought,” I admitted dropping my hand away from my face and surrendered myself to the doctor’s roving fingers.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Khala said, her voice sounded flat, lacking all of its usual emotion and personality. I don’t know if it was the strain of healing me or if she was just tired, but it was a little unnerving. ‘I’ll keep it short. You’re in bad shape, a lot worse than I originally put on. I drained the rest of the power from your pistols… which helped a bit. Just try not to move and as soon can get me more to feed on. I need to focus on healing you so you may not hear from me until you’re in better shape.’
“It is most difficult to say without any of Vakrexid’s equipment, but I believe your symbiote will be able to heal you sufficiently given enough time.”
“Just what I wanted to hear. ” I closed my eyes–make that eye–and groaned. A moment later, I felt the doctor scoop me up in my arms and I opened my remaining peeper just in time to watch Rayland take off toward the control room. I had lost a lot of blood and I was having a lot of trouble concentrating on what he said, but I’m pretty certain it was something along the lines of ‘she’s safe. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The doctor, by contrast, set a much slower pace, no doubt; because of my injuries and I was never so thankful. He took me down the corridor and was about to veer into the doorway of the crew quarters when everything suddenly lurched sideways. The doctor must have lost his grip because the next thing I knew I felt a bright flash of pain as I was slammed quite forcefully into the bulkheads. I felt the darkness creep into the edges of my vision and I thought I might lose consciousness altogether. Somehow I managed to hang on. Once things had settled a bit, I felt a hand on my shoulder and I heard Becca calling my name.
“Lexa, are you alright?”
“Just once, I’d let to get a ship, that had working inertial negators,” I grunted barely managing to pull myself up into a sitting position. “Guess that means… we’re making our escape”
“Indeed,” the doctor said climbing to his feet and shaking himself off like some wild animal. “That is a most likely assumption.”
“Let’s get you, into the bridge and strapped into one of the harnesses,” Becca put her hand on my shoulder. “I think it’s a good bet this ride is going to get even bumpier.”
“Yeah,” Farris groaned from far off. “It’s not a bad idea for the rest of us to do the same.”
“Most assuredly,” the doctor agreed wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Let us be quick. It is likely that Lily shall be forced to make many evasive maneuvers to evade the Qharr ship.”
No one put up any argument and with Farris’s help the doctor got me safely strapped into one of the seats on the bridge. Lily issued a brief greeting and stopped what she was doing just long enough to show concern over my well-being, but she was soon forced to return her attention to the controls. At first the destroyer stayed right on our tails, but soon they started to lose altitude and we all let out a collective sigh of relief. Explosions rippled across the hull, and the ship went plummeting down to the earth below before bursting into a brilliant ball of flames. We lingered only moments before Lily’s fingers scrolled across the control surface and sent the ship hurtling into the night sky.
Chapter Three
“Kaya!” I screamed sitting bolt upright and looked around the dark room. It took it a couple moments for it to register where I was and a few more to realize that I had been dreaming.
Kaya’s death had been real enough, but it still hadn’t quite sunk in. I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, but when I did my dreams were plagued by visions of her death. I kept second guessing myself wondering if th
ere hadn’t been some way in which I could have saved her.
Hot tears stung my cheek as images of her lifeless corpse flooded through my mind. A void had formed within my soul and I could think of no way to fill it. Never again would I hear her laugh, cry or even curse. Hell, I think I would even miss that manic fire of hers that had gotten us into so much trouble.
My child, it too was dead, and wasn’t sure how I could come to terms with its passing. Kaya pregnancy had still been in its early stages and at first the prospect of its birth had scared me, but that no longer was the case. My grief over the child’s demise was nearly as strong as that for Kaya.
To make matters worse I had begun my first period. My emotions were so raw and wild I couldn’t even begin to guess how much of it was because I was menstruating and how much was my grief. I just wanted to collapse into a heap and just let the grief and rage wash over me like a tempest storm, but I had other concerns. I couldn’t afford to let my feelings get the better of me.
I bit my lip and pulled the waistband of my pants open and slipped my hand inside. I sighed and pulled the disposable pad, the doctor had given me, free and reached under the bed to grab a replacement. According to the doctor, the only reason I hadn’t had a period up until that point was that I had been carrying the infant Dyssa in my womb. In some ways my body had reacted as if I’d actually been pregnant, but since I hadn’t experiences the usual symptoms like, breast growth, lactation and morning sickness. Thank God for that. Since, my womb was now K’teth-free I could menstruate with the best of them.
The bleeding was irritating, but Khala claimed she was suppressing some of the more unpleasant symptoms and while I wasn’t getting the full treatment, I couldn’t understand how any woman could put up with such horrible discomfort every month. It was one of the reasons I was considering taking Khala up on her offer to return me to my original form, but something kept stopping me.
We’d been on the run from the Qharr since we’d escaped the destroyer. We even had a few close calls, but had managed to evade them for the time being. Every time we thought we’d eluded them another of their damn ships would show up. Once I’d recovered from my injuries Lily and I started taking turns at the helm, trading places every four hours so that we could stay alert and fresh. We were starting to get a pretty good grip on the controls.
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