Kenner and Chen were both sauntering to the back of the Feather's Shadow when she'd gotten their attention. Kenner shared his newly acquired ability to manifest fear with Chen as they both stared into the scarred face of Yasmine Savoya.
“How?” Chen muttered.
Kenner gripped Chen by the shoulders, staring her directly in the eyes. He left her standing there, eyes now locked onto the woman she'd been trying to kill since the incident at Striker Main.
Thirty-Two
Team Baby Doll watched the Shadow loop in a tight circle, racing out of sight down the lengthy runway. The ship's cargo consisting of Lasher, Kenner, and enough Swarm-tech to start a war.
Savoya threw her helmet behind her, falling squarely in Tempi's hands. The bot magnalocked it to the back of the woman's armor. The revealed mercenary angled her head in Fluff's direction. “Truce?”
“Truce.”
“You know why megalomaniacs throw those epic monologues, right?” Tarot-Savoya asked.
Fluff's voice dove deep, as if his anguish fueled anger changed the pitch of whatever murder engine drove the panther mech. “Because they think the people they're talking to are going to be chopped into fertilizer.”
Tarot pointed to her adversary. “Ms. Chen? How do you feel about that?”
Team Baby Doll ducked behind the cargo boxes, creating shooting positions to take on the combined threat. Assessing the fight, Kat was the first to react. Seeing the blues were going to be the fastest of their attackers, she hoisted a crate, launching it in their direction. The metal cargo locker toppled four at once, the group not ready for the force leveled at them by the diminutive cyborg.
“Kel, put some fire into those blues with that special ammo. Cards, take out those shields. Fluff!” Tarot roared.
There was no stopping the rage that was Fluffang Doom-Snuggle. The panther mech slid across a group of cargo boxes, changing shape into his bipedal form. Picking up a crate of his own, he slammed it down on top of the blues Kat already knocked over with a sickeningly wet crunch. One of them attempted to rise only to suffer the box on a back swing from the Doom Cat.
Going for another of the squads, Fluff was struck multiple times by one of the 1170's rat-tat-tatting across the battle space. The rounds struck his armor pinging like smacking a pot with a wooden spoon. The bolts spun the mech off his feet to seek the cover of the containers. Autogun rounds chewed the outside of the resicarbon boxes, eroding his cover with no means of escape.
Kat felt energized, new combat algorithms coming online to show her the best path through the ever-growing junkyard of carnage. She dove into a stack of boxes, dodging auto-blaster and merc fire from a jump across an open space, before coming around to deal with another squad of blues on their flank. She tore through them with the grace of a murderous dancer powered by a micro-reactor.
“Cover!” Justice called out. The cards opened up on the line of Black Cyphers, keeping them pinned behind the glowing azure shields. Justice took a multitude of hits trying to take one down. He managed to shoot it hard enough with the Vortex to turn it a shade of pink. When he took a rifle grenade round to the chest, the break in the onslaught of bolts gave the device room to recharge, keeping its occupants safe from harm.
“Frag out!” Kel yelled, leaning just outside of the cargo boxes to throw a grenade he'd been saving for just such an occasion. He managed to lob the explosive across the floor to wedge itself under the drop shield. Pushing himself behind the containers, he took a burst of bolts to the chest from one of the drone mounted 1170s.
Kat shouted across the din, “Kel!”
“Armor took it! Go!” he coughed.
The grenade went off, shredding four of the mercs behind the now toppled shield. Fragmentation redirected along the downed energy barrier wounded six more. Kat rushed into the breach, tackling another merc, running him through with her arm-mounted blade before using him as a shield to shoot two more of his comrades.
Savoya dragged over one of the ruined blues, pulling two injector vials from his belt. She slammed them into her neck, grunting against the pain. Replacing her helmet, she was up and moving faster than she had been, her armor's myo-fiber strands barely able to keep up with her newfound speed. Old exposure and new training over rode the Swarm-tech's ability to control her thoughts, interfacing them with genetic memory of a time when she and it were one. A shimmering blade in one hand and her pistol in the other, she moved into Kel's breach, cutting to the side toward one of the other shield array's. Blues and mercs tangled in a dance of death against the now enhanced Dreadmarr soldier. Shooting one in the skull on the move to duck an incoming round, she stabbed a second victim, painting his guts across their boots. She slid on her knees, jumping up to nearly decapitate two troopers, adding to the gory art exhibit on the floor.
She jumped over another of the blues, landing in front of a merc she pistol thumped in the chest. Armor shattered in the ever increasing speed as the owl eyed killer withdrew the pistol for a burst to finish him off. Raising for another target, a blue pressed against her gun hand, pushing it to the side. Her phased knife backhanded the woman in the underarm like a sewing needle, ripping gouts of blood from the artery. A bolt to the knee bent the women forward, in line with the phase knife to cut through her throat en route to her spine.
A shockwave knocked back the enemy force as Chen was throttled aside by Kat. The cyborg's arms were glowing along the elegant filigree decorated seams ending in an ethereal fire coming off her clenched fists.
“You can't win this. Your bots are falling to my people and you're...”
Tarot struck Chen in the mouth with enough ferocity to bend duradrium. Kat was on the move as well, thumping the warlord in the chest with flame shrouded fists. Chen grabbed Kat by the throat, bouncing her into the carcrete with force sufficient to crack it. Rapid fire Xang fighting methods, reminiscent of the Kung Fu from Old Sol, held off Tarot's oncoming fury, her attempts to deal out blaster bolts or life ending cuts parried away. A center-fired fist battered the mercenary, knocking her from her feet.
“I have been elevated to more than just some simple cyborg or an infected little girl in a mask. I will be the Warlord of Tythian! I will stand over your graves as I...”
The woman was cut short, a massive energized tendril poking more than a meter through her chest. The weapon retracted as the other bound her ankles. Fluff raised Chen off her feet, hammering her into the floor for a nail only he could pound. When he let go, he resumed his panther form, growling from the depths of the Twin Hells rumbling in his belly. It was clear, anything after this point that crossed the pacing-mech would meet it's end in a fashion so brutal, it would have been crafted by whatever devil they believed in.
Tarot stood over the ruined body, removing her helmet so she could stare into the warlord's face. “We've corrupted your Phoenix point. Any storage hub you had connected to that is now poisoned. Whatever part of you in that haunted house you call a skull is all you have unless you live through this moment. And the only way out is to answer my questions. Where did he take Orin Lashra?”
“Koda Corporation wanted him. Norris told Kenner. Kenner told Singh. They'll most likely take him to a Koda R&D facility.” Chen’s words came out halting and broken. Spittle oozed from the side of a broken jaw under a head that wouldn't sit right.
“What's next?” Tarot shouted.
“What assurance do I have you won't kill me?”
Scorn traced its way into Tarot-Savoya's face, followed the remembrance of honor. “My word is my wings. You can't fly on broken promises.”
“Kenner wanted to test the Swarm,” Chen admitted “They fought you to a standstill. Now that we know the ion-interference vulnerability, he can adjust. He'll be ready to assault a real target.”
“Don't make me beat it out of you.” Tarot growled.
“They want Tythian.”
“Kat!” Priestess' shout interrupted.
She was holding Kel, part of his armor unbuckled. Her arm
was broken into segmented medical tools, working under the chest plate.
“What happened?” Kat said, dropping beside them.
“That burst from the drone punched through the armor. He's got multiple fractures along with a large caliber bolt through his chest. His lung is cooked, ma'am. He needs a MedEvac, now.”
“You don't get to do this. I don't want to have to break in a new dance partner and I just got used to the way you fly,” Kat told him.
Kel's breathing was labored, coming in blood-soaked coughing bouts. He squeezed Kat's hand, his eyes locked onto her. He laughed at her joke, bringing another round of coughing.
Savoya put her mask back on. “Tess. Trauma-1 protocols. Justice, aid and litter. Romeo and Tempi on secure. Get him to the lab. Kat, go with them.”
“What about you?”
“I'm not done here. Go.” When their running was a distant echo, she said to Fluff, “Be there with your friend when the light fails him. No man was ever so rich than to have a true friend stand beside him... even in this.”
“Thank you,” Fluff said gratefully. “What about you?”
“I am a watcher in the wind, death on silent skies. I am the Dreadmarr. I'll be fine.”
Fluff bounded away as the masked soldier descended on the remaining troupe.
“What of us?” asked one of the Black Cyphers.
Snap hisses of armor locking and seals being shut, signaled the return of the Dreadmarr warrior. “There is a rumor going around that you serve the Dreadmarr. I want to make it clear today that the rumor is false. You serve the Fallen and that comes with its own consequences.”
She shot a dart from her gauntlet onto the remaining auto-blaster turret. “Kill them all.”
Reaching down, she took hold of Ms. Chen's ruined body. Dragging the broken criminal, the mercenary stalked to the waiting elevator doors, indifferent to the sounds of weapon's fire thumping the remaining enemy into a burning graveyard. The mask covering her face gave no hint of emotion as she watched the drone ring out the whole time, indiscriminately slaughtering the Black Cyphers. She tossed her, near lifeless, cargo into the lift, not bothering to watch the ending of the grizzly spectacle. The few remaining blues tried destroying the gun. Their plan got them swallowed up by a fireball that filled the hangar after they managed to rupture the power battery.
On a dead run from the elevator, Kat's comm chirped. “Ma'am, this is Merlin. We couldn't convert the last AI general. He self-deleted rather than be turned. We can't convert the rest of the blues.”
“Never mind that no,” Kat pleaded. “Set up the lab for surgery. Can you do that?”
“There's a suite down the hall. I have your location. I'll have it for you when you get here. You should know, there's a blue strike team moving to you.”
“Thank you, Merlin. Won't be a problem.” Turning back to Justice, Kat saw Kel cradled in his arms, Tess working from the large mech's shoulder. “Hold back a moment.”
She shut the face shield on her helmet, locking herself into the combat resolution matrix spinning up to bring her into full sentinel mode. She catapulted forward in a blur of motion that would have been the envy of any marshal or monk. Her dark armor was highlighted in blue by the immense power build up of a now unlocked Sentinel Combat Form. She struck the oncoming blues in a detonation wave that sent most of them flying without firing a single shot. Half meter long swords wrapped in plasma fields protruded from her wrist, cutting them down like harvesting wheat. In a matter of moments the fight was over. She ran through the carnage, reaching the elevator to usher most of the team inside.
“We're staying to hold the way for Madame Tarot,” Tempi said.
Kat nodded. “Understood. Thank you.”
The elevator felt painfully slow, despite the rapid descent.
“I... Do you remember that day on Tythian? You... were dancing. You laughed about how it... how it made you happy to feel your toes in the snow….” A coughing fit stopped Kel’s ramble.
Priestess produced a hose to suction out his mouth. She injected him with another dose of medical nanites trying their best to devour burnt tissue and close his injuries. Massive pain killers were making him delirious while keeping him conscious.
“We'll get back to that spot soon and have us a right proper bonfire we can dance around. You just have to make it.” All the power of the of the Exodus Fleet contained in her body couldn't stop her shoulders from being racked from the sobs forcing their way out.
“You pulled me up to dance. It was... it was like freedom. You were so beautiful in the snow. You made that... you were easy to hold. That night was perfect. I never wanted to leave that mountain.”
“Twin Hells, why are you saying this now! Can't this thing move any faster?”
“Almost there,” Priestess said as reassuringly as she could.
“Wait.” Kat wiped the tears raining from her eyes. “When we were on the Doll coming here. You spoke to Lasher about not wanting to go back to your old life. Was that because of me?”
“I wanted every day... because of you,” Kel said.
“Flatline!” Priestess shouted. “Justice!”
“No!” Kat sobbed, her face burying into Kel's neck as if the mere contact might wake him.
The doors were barely open when the heavy infantry mech batted them into their housings. Rocket-assisted boosters launched him down the hall, where Jester ushered them into a room. He laid Kel down on the table, giving Priestess room to jump off and work. Armor and clothing were tossed aside, revealing a scorched hole with bone fragments piercing the skin.
“Merlin! Do they have a medi-gel tank here?” Priestess asked.
“No!”
“Please, save him,” Kat stood in the entrance to the surgical suite.
“Tess, if any of my parts will help, I want to give them,” Fluff said, sneaking in behind Kat.
“I'm sure that he would have appreciated that, Fluff. But he's gone. There was too much damage. I'm sorry.”
Kat moved forward on wobbly legs, like that first day of donning Sister Leeuwen's cyborg body. She draped herself over Kel, holding his head to hers. He was still warm, and she wanted to feel the dying embers of a man who hadn't judged her for her past. He'd accepted her for who she was in the moment and he'd just declared he'd lived every one since then to be close to her. There was a word for that feeling but she couldn't bring herself to use it, much less think it. Her cybernetic heart was constructed of the most intricate materials in the galaxy, containing its own micro-reactor to give it near limitless power. Even with all that tech she didn't think she could survive saying that word right now.
She'd found herself, only to lose all over again. In the silence of the room, she let herself weep. It was the wail of total loss. The sound only a broken heart could ever make. The loss at the end of everything. She'd lived lifetimes full of failures. Failing to win the war for Exodus. Failing the Baroness of her Phalanx. Failing to save the man she thought of as her brother. Now she’d failed Kel.
She stopped crying for a moment when she felt a touch. Curled by her legs was the massive Doom Cat. He had just settled in beneath the table when his tail curling behind him brushed her leg. His immense head was poised so that Kel's hand was resting on top of it. “You okay?”
“Kel was my friend. How many machines can say they had a friend? It hurts me that I can't cry for him. Would it be okay if I just sat here and caught some of your tears. I promise to be careful with them. I just want to share them for a while so I can be sad for my friend.”
“You don't have to ask for something like that,” Kat said, spreading some of her tears across what would be Fluff's eyes.
“How do they look?”
“Like they should.” Kat said with a quivering tenderness in her voice.
“I broke a promise.” Fluff's voice was small. It had the sound of real and profound sadness. “In the hangar. I told Orin I would keep all of you safe. That makes me a bad friend. The only way I can figure to be
a good friend, now, is to guard Kel until Orin comes back.”
“We'll guard him together, then,” Kat said, laying across the Doom Cat.
“Can I help?”
Fluff raised his head slightly to see past Kat. The Savoya who had been with them the whole time came over to kneel beside them. She placed her hands in her lap and waited patiently to be acknowledged.
“So you're one of the Cards, like Romeo.” Fluff asked.
“We each have our strengths. I was the decoy to flush out the enemy.”
Fluff put his head on Savoya Decoy's lap. “Can you help us cry?”
“We can do more than that. For now, crying would be a good start.”
“The tears aren't really mine. Kat let me have them.”
The android cradled the monstrous head in her lap. “The fact that you wanted them makes them yours.”
Footfalls, heavy from a load of armor, tapped their way into the room, causing the Cards to part. Madame Tarot strode in, covered in fresh blood and blaster burns. Her half cloak was in smoking tatters, wisps of ash trailed the savaged garment as it fell apart. She waded through the sea of expectant faces, not stopping to acknowledge them before slamming a handful of auto-injectors into the center of Kel's chest.
“Pandora. There's a wet bag of garbage in the hallway. Attend to it per my instructions.”
The Savoya clone stood from her vigil, nodding ever so slightly to the mercenary soldier. “Straight away, madame.”
“The rest of you on point. We have a lot of work to do before the marshals find their way here.”
Tarot knelt down, her mask eye level with the astonished looks on Kat and Fluff's faces. “Both of you. Shake off your grief. This isn't over and your family needs you.”
“Kel and Orin were our family,” the panther whispered.
“Are your family.” She placed emphasis on the first word in her statement, making it sound decidedly final. “You started something that's being hammered on the Forge right now. That big red goon bound you together in the fires of the Crucible. There isn't a thing in the galaxy that can break that. So, all of you get up. It's no longer just about you. It's about the tribe.”
The Revenant: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 2) Page 41
