by Vance Huxley
“Just Fleur, Beebi. Are you sure?”
“She asked, Hood.” Bobby knelt and picked her up and Fleur roused enough to get her good arm round his neck. “You’re going to the hospital.”
Her eyes closed again when Bobby stood. The amount of blood left on the floor startled him again. He carried Fleur through and as he entered the room and the lights came on, her eyes opened again. “Triste. Sad. No l’amour.” Her eyes closed again, blood trickling from her mouth.
Bobby laid her on the table. He’d considered a box, but they looked too much like coffins. “I’m sorry. Au revoir.” She’d taught him that, and “Fleur amie.” He kissed her on the forehead but Fleur didn’t respond. Bobby turned away, taking the dagger from the doorway. He was going to ram this down Ranger Boy’s bledrin throat. He played the laser on the controls until the door closed. The bledrin lasers were useless as weapons. There wouldn’t be time for the lasers to burn through a jacket over this distance, and the Trooper face-shields would protect eyes.
Inside the room the main lights went out leaving half a dozen yellow pinpricks gleaming brightly. Blood trickled down the grooves in the table, and dripped into the drain. In the darkness a tiny purple light came on, then three blue ones. Something stirred, and metal whirred.
* * *
Bobby pulled out the seven bins in the side room to make a barrier across half the corridor, mostly two high. They could thin the basteds in the corridor, then at the last minute nip into the room and open up as the bledrin Rangers or whoever came round or over the bins. Three times while he worked Ecarlate sent a short burst down the main corridor. Each time Hood and Magpie emptied a shotgun apiece, one each way and down low to catch crawlers. The first time they got a scream, then silence.
The ship must have calculated the action had finished. A hatch opened to let one of the little robots get started on cleaning up the long smear of blood left by Fleur. Moments later solid flechettes lashed it, punching holes in the metal. The little machine stopped in a shower of sparks and a puff of smoke, while Ranger Boy screamed at some bledrin fool to stop wasting solids. At least that meant there couldn’t be many. “We could try to take out one group?” Magpie must be getting impatient. “Baiser will be up for it soon so that’s six of us with Bells to watch our backs.”
“If there’s only one clip of solids left, one burst will make our six into three or less. Remember how hard a solid round hit your leg?” Magpie nodded, scowling because she couldn’t use it properly now. Two rounds had gone in and the leg stayed stiff so she limped. “A solid will knock your other leg away and you’ll fall, or you’ll get hand to hand and lose your balance. Siflis and Baiser are concussed, and Pepee is limping because she’s got a bullet in the ass and one in her metal leg. That means me and Hood arrive first, and they kill us with solids then kill the rest of you.”
“So we just wait.” Magpie still didn’t like the option.
“We wait because some of those flechettes we threw down the corridor have caused injuries. The jackets mean most that get through will only be flesh wounds like most of ours but each wound bleeds, and we hit them a lot so injuries will be adding up. He’s got wounded, some of them hit badly, and they keep getting flicked by a few more injuries. Ranger Boy sounds the impatient type.” Bobby brandished his shotgun. “Up close we can get through all the jackets except for the two from Supers.” He nodded towards the sniper. “Hood is good enough to get them through the bledrin gap between jacket and helmet, or where the glove meets the sleeve.”
“If he cannot?”
Bobby smiled at Pepee and showed her the dagger. “They’ll be the only two left, and we’ll use steel.” Pepee really smiled for the first time. She liked the idea of finishing the fight with steel. The corporal leant against a wall and took out a long knife and stone, and the sound as she freshened the edge seemed quite homely. Magpie and Bells both spent a fair amount of time doing the same back in the barracks.
Bobby told them to lie down in turn and close their eyes, to get some rest if they couldn’t sleep. Hood seemed to actually sleep and so did Baiser, though her head wound might be responsible for her going out for a while. Bobby began to worry that Ranger boy had sent someone after Ecarlate, so Pepee warned her again by tapper. When his turn came, Bobby couldn’t sleep because the Ranger had already taken longer than expected, well over two hours longer.
* * *
Flechettes whined past, so Ecarlate had stayed awake. That had been another worry. Bobby fired a shotgun towards the ladder room while Hood fired one the other way, and metal clanged and clattered! The shield! Bobby almost looked but they’d be waiting for that, and Siflis lost his mirror back at the barricade. Ecarlate fired a longer burst and Bobby heard a scuffle towards the ladder room. The jackets! They were using those and the shield to come from both ways. He frantically waved for everyone to fall back.
They looked baffled and then Magpie turned and pushed at Siflis. “Coming both ways, run.” She kept her voice down but Bells and Pepee heard and started back. That caught Baiser halfway between the barricade and corridor entrance, where she hesitated and levelled her carbin. The blonde backed up but stumbled and went over, probably because of her concussion. Almost everyone else dived or rolled behind the bins, but Hood and Bobby didn’t quite make it. A burst of solid rounds knocked Bobby’s legs out from under him and he heard Hood grunt as the big man went down. Bobby turned as he fell, emptying his carbin at the figure shooting at him. A hail of flechettes flew over his head once he cleared the line of sight for Pepee and Magpie.
Magpie screamed “Hood!” As Bobby rolled he saw that the big man had fallen forward into the bins, and now Magpie and Pepee pulled him over the low end of the barrier. Bobby frantically rolled again. He started to try and get up, then flinched as Bells emptied the Kraut just above his head. Solid rounds hit the bins before some knocked Bells over backwards. The little automatic bounced away towards the hospital leaving the Trooper in a heap, bleeding badly.
Bobby lurched up, glancing back as he tried to get around the barricade, then tried to stop and turn because a Trooper had almost reached him! He half-turned, bringing up his carbin but that and his bledrin shotgun were empty, and his legs wouldn’t turn him properly. He jabbed with the barrel and the Trooper flinched then grabbed at the carbin barrel, pushing it wide as Bobby did the same to the Trooper’s carbin.
Bobby tried for a head butt as they swung each other around, but missed and the man let go of his carbin to pull a knife. Bobby grabbed hold of that wrist, trying to get at his own knife, but he couldn’t get his balance because of the bullets in his legs. He tried to turn his opponent so the basted with solid rounds couldn’t get a clear target but only tottered. Bobby swore as plastic buckshot bit into his arm, but most of it tore his attacker away, throwing him across into the corridor wall.
“Thanks.” Bobby didn’t think Magpie heard him as she dropped the shotgun, aimed her carbin up the corridor and let off two long bursts. Bobby tried to cram shells into his shotgun, but before he could close it another Trooper crashed into him. They cannoned into the wall, with Bobby’s wounded arm and open shotgun trapped between them as the Trooper’s forearm went across Bobby’s throat and pushed. Bobby used his other hand to grab at the Trooper’s knife arm as it came down, though the point bit into his shoulder.
As they struggled, locked together, the Trooper grinned. “Got you, Beebi.”
It was the voice, the Ranger! Bobby struggled, but his legs wouldn’t knee or even push properly. He let go of the useless shotgun, trying to free his arm, but couldn’t. Beyond the Trooper, Bobby saw Baiser get a knife into a man but he smashed her back into the wall and her eyes rolled up. She dropped and he turned, holding his side but picking up a carbin with the other hand. Magpie still fired bursts up the corridor, and the bright marks on the bins and walls showed she’d got the attention of the basted using solid rounds.
Pepee struggled with another Trooper but Baiser’s erstwhile opponent closed on
the sergeant and Bobby couldn’t call to warn her. Siflis rolled around the floor, trying to get a knife into a Trooper and kicking, kneeing, elbowing and head-butting. He’d wrapped his wire around his opponent’s knife hand, pulling back and forth to try and cut into it.
Bobby’s trapped hand couldn’t reach his knife or bayonet but his fingers touched something. The dagger! Bobby pushed even as his lungs fought for air, and got two fingertips below the boss. Without the strength in his metal finger he would never have got it clear enough to grasp. Even then Bobby felt his senses reeling as he slowly twisted the short blade and then started to work the point through the Trooper’s Supervisor jacket. His vision faded in and out.
A scream brought his eyes to Siflis, who’d lost his knife but got his laser up under a face-shield to burn out one of his opponent’s eyes. Beyond Siflis, Pepee got her knife into her Trooper but the other hit her in the gut with his carbin butt and she went down. He raised the weapon to finish her but froze, staring beyond Bobby.
The pale blue eyes looking into Bobby’s widened in surprise as the Ranger felt the dagger point finally get through his jacket and start into his gut. Maybe too late as his forearm crushed harder. Then a hand came over Bobby’s shoulder, grabbed a handful of the Ranger’s jacket, and threw him backwards! The Ranger flew back and toppled over, leaving Bobby staring at a Trooper with a levelled carbin. The Trooper aimed but hesitated and moved the barrel across as someone came past Bobby. Bobby tried to move forward but a leg gave way and he went over backwards. “Stay there.” He knew that voice. Fleur!
Bobby sat, stunned as he watched Fleur walk up the corridor. A stark naked Fleur without even her stockings, and even with the other shite going on Bobby couldn’t help but notice how bledrin gorgeous she looked. He flinched and tried to cry out as the carbin fired again but his throat wouldn’t work. Bobby closed his shotgun, bringing it up but too late because he saw her judder when the rounds bit home. Instead of falling Fleur, it had to be Fleur, raised her hand. Blue lightning played around her fingertips before electric blue light blazed out. A man screamed briefly and the carbin stopped firing. Her other hand reached down to seize a Ranger by the throat, the one she’d plucked off Bobby. She picked him up clear of the ground and rammed his head into the wall then dropped him.
The man wrestling with Siflis broke free and limped away trailing blood, leaving the scout on his hands and knees, panting and shaking his head. The one standing over Pepee dropped his carbin and ran, clutching his side. Another tottered to his feet, his arm and shoulder shredded, bounced off the wall and staggered away. Bobby sat stunned as the survivors fled, forgetting the shotgun as he stared at Fleur. The one with the ruined arm reached the end of the corridor, before reeling back. Ecarlate followed her carbin butt round the corner with a savage grin on her face, reversing the weapon to fire a burst through the Trooper’s shattered faceplate. Then she stopped, shock replacing the glee. “Fleur?”
The naked woman turned and Bobby gasped through the pain in his throat. Despite the calm smile on her face, the flechettes had torn Fleur’s chest to pieces. Then she brushed the flechettes away and Bobby saw that although her upper body dripped crimson, the missiles were barely stuck in. That made no sense because the flechettes bouncing on the floor in front of Bobby were razor sharp steel, not plastic. He tried again and croaked “Fleur?” Now Bobby wondered what the table had done, had it created a monster, a robot who looked like his ami?
“It’s me Beebi.” Her smile certainly looked like Fleur. Then her face sobered. “Who can run quickly? The two who left have no carbins, and are wounded and bleeding badly. I can send you a quicker way.” She concentrated. “There are two more waiting by the engines, but you will come out behind them. Quickly, or they might close the engine room and burn out the locks.”
“What about Hood?” Magpie knelt by the big man, trying to turn him over to get at his wounds.
“I can fix him. Better than new, like me. But to save them I must stay, so you must kill those men.”
Magpie looked up at Fleur and her face hardened. “I’ve got a limp but I’ll try.”
Fleur smiled reassuringly. “You will be quick enough.”
Magpie stood up, limping forward with her carbin and a shotgun. Ecarlate looked beyond her, at Baiser and Pepee curled up on the floor and the still figure of Bells beyond. “Je peux courir.” She shook her head as if clearing it. “I can run.”
“Follow me.” Fleur strode off round the corner towards the ladders, followed by the two women. Shortly afterwards Bobby heard a swoosh, then after a long pause another, and Fleur came back alone. She smiled, looking down at herself. “I have no secrets left.” She bent, picked up Hood as if he were made of feathers, and strode off out of sight. Bobby struggled round, watching as she placed him on one of the tables before pressing what must be controls. A field formed round the whole table. As it thickened to block the view Bobby saw the nightmare of knives, probes and drills stir into action. He struggled up the wall until he could stand propped against it, while Fleur picked up Bells and did the same on another table.
Fleur, maybe Fleur, came back again. “Non, non.” Baiser looked drunk, couldn’t sit up, and probably wasn’t quite thinking straight yet, but she wasn’t going on a table! Fleur shrugged and turned to Pepee, who held out her hands to ward the naked woman off.
Siflis glanced up, still on his hands and knees. “No thanks, not until I know what you are.”
Fleur turned to Bobby. “I’m not wounded, not properly.” Bobby croaked it, but told the truth because nothing had gone in deep. “Metal legs are pooched.”
Fleur smiled as she came towards him, but Bobby tensed a little. Her face fell. “I wanted to hold you, mon ami.”
Bobby held out his arms, because even if she did seem to be flechette proof the hurt in her eyes looked like Fleur. So did the joy as she closed the distance. A few moments later Bobby could confirm that the amie kiss, or possibly Diva, felt exactly like Fleur. He looked down at her bloody chest. “Don’t you need more time in there?”
“Not for that.” Fleur wiped blood away with a hand, showing that the flechette holes were barely pinpricks now. “The other two will heal now, heal like me. If those two basteds double back, can you kill them?” Her eyes dropped and Fleur looked shy for a moment. “I need to wash, and find clothes.”
“Go on then, though I wouldn’t say you really need the clothes. Not from where I am.”
“Hah. Typical Trooper! Likes any woman with no clothes.” But Bobby saw real happiness in her smile as she turned away. He pulled his eyes away from the view as Fleur headed for their room, to find Siflis, Pepee and Baiser staring at her as well.
Pepee looked over. “Ses jambes. Aucun metal.” She smiled but then it faltered. “Her legs. Fleur has no metal legs. Or maybe Fleur is all metal?”
The shock hit him because yes, no matter how well made the metal, the Putes wore their Trooper shorts to cover the bright band of the bio-metal interface where steel knitted with flesh. Fleur had no join, not even the garters Ecarlate used with her briefer shorts. “Fleur doesn’t feel all metal, she feels all woman.” Bobby felt his face heat up and waited for Siflis to flick him about it. Troopers didn’t blush. Instead all three laughed.
Baiser glanced towards the hospital room, now closed off again. “Will they be like that afterwards, no metal legs?”
“I don’t know.” Bobby frowned. “Maybe there’s more metal because Fleur’s arm took a burst of solid flechettes, and so did her hip and some of her gut.” He daren’t say the next bit, that he’d thought she died.
“Ecarlate might be happy if Bells gets the metal he wanted.” Siflis sniggered. “I wonder if he gets hydraulics.” The two women caught on and then they were all laughing at the idea, or maybe they were all just glad to be alive.
Baiser put a hand on the wall before resting her head on it, holding her stomach with the other hand. “I feel sick.” Moments later vomit splattered on the wall and floor. “Sorry
.”
“Concussion. Siflis will probably do the same.” Bobby grinned. “You should both go and lie down.” He nodded towards the hospital room.
“Not in there, but lying down is good.” Baiser stood up straighter, helped by Pepee. She tried to walk and staggered. “I cannot climb a ladder like this, so sick room.”
Bobby shrugged, gesturing to the dead Trooper by the end of the passageway. “I’ll sit by the ladder room in case those two come back. I doubt it, but if they do that carbin has got solid flechettes, and I’ve got my shotgun.” They all looked at the charred hole in the Trooper’s jacket and chest, a Supervisor jacket.
“How did Fleur do that?” Baiser frowned and swayed again. “What can do that?”
“With her hand. Like this. With la foudre, electricite, zap!” Pepee held up her hand just as Fleur had. She looked over at Bobby. “Fleur really feels like woman? Not metal under the skin? Your hand on her ass felt right?”
The answer came without thought. “Oh yes, very!” As they laughed Bobby blushed again because yes, when a naked Fleur kissed him he had stroked her ass. He paused, and thought this time. “She felt just the same as the last two nights, but without clothes.”
Pepee smiled. “Good.” She helped Baiser away, followed by a sniggering, staggering Siflis.
Bobby shuffled along the wall, carefully because his legs were really pooched, and bent enough to pick up the carbin. He checked the weapon over, finding it had half a clip of solids left, and put a new clip of plastics in his own carbin. Bobby worked his way carefully round the corner to lean against the wall by the ladder room. Relief swept through him. They’d made it. Bobby stuffed dressings down his jacket sleeve to stop the bleeding until he had chance to fix it properly. He injected himself with Kwikheal, then concentrated on staying upright and checking each way along the corridor now and then, rather than collapsing from sheer exhaustion.
