All the increasingly-frantic hacking in the cluster wasn’t going to make it suddenly work for him again, and 286 knew it. And when he slowly looked up at her again, so did he, because now she was grinning at him. As he began to back cautiously away, she wanted to say something funny, snap off some clever one-liner, but couldn’t get it to come out. Part of that was because she didn’t have full control of herself again yet, but mainly it was because all she could manage to do was grin broader and broader, her breathing deepening as the maniacal expression inched its way up her face despite what either of them tried to do to repress it.
So he pulled out his backup pistol and shot her, snapping off an amazingly accurate quick-draw shot at her face, likely aided by all that tech embedded in his enhanced arm. It was far too late, of course: her basic Kinetics were the very first thing she’d reclaimed control of, and the heavy metal bullet’s force was slapped aside as if by the hand of an angry god.
Or the closest he’s ever going to see to one. As far as she was concerned, it was a pretty apt comparison, and the thought made her chuckle, the sound coming out savage, rough and broken because of her incomplete bodily control. He wisely turned and ran then, transitioning smoothly from standing to a dead sprint in an attempt to disappear down the long hallway. 286 raised her hand to reach out with her Kinetics and stop him, but the motion was still shuddering and clumsy, and she couldn’t quite focus on him quickly enough to catch hold of his fleeing form. It was okay, though.
Instead, she took one trembling step after another, picking up pace as she did so and using the motion to regain more and more of her motor control. There was nowhere on this planet he could go to hide from her now. No one crossed her and lived.
He did make it to the other end of the dimly lit, steel-reinforced hallway well before her, though. If it had been a race from here to there, he would have won, and perhaps he naively thought it was. The man skidded to a stop and spun, slapping a palm hard against an otherwise unobtrusive panel on the wall.
An orange warning light flashed in time with the sudden, deep wailing of an alarm, and the tech managed a relieved, victorious grin as a massive bulkhead quickly began to drop down, just centimeters in front of his face. 286 snarled wordlessly, her abiding enmity helping her push aside lingering resistance, and her Kinetics-enhanced strides carried her forward, each step devouring more ground than the last. She intended to overtake him before the bulkhead could drop, but it was too late. The merc-tech jammed on the insert in his arm one final time in desperation, and a harsh, electric impulse slammed through her with a staggering impact that jarred along her nerves viciously, causing her to stumble and almost fall as her body locked up with sudden pain.
Prepared and now more resistant to the sensation, she pushed it aside within a couple of breaths. Despite the quick recovery, her momentum was still squandered, and the thick bulkhead dropped down, leaving them momentarily face to face, save the meter of reinforced steel separating them. She stumbled to a stop, leaning momentarily against the heavy metal wall that had sealed away her prey. She lashed out at it with a fist, the stalwart metal barely denting a couple of centimeters under the force of her blow, even with her mortal strength augmented by her unbridled anger and unleashed Kinetic force. Pain resounded through her hand, but she pushed the useless sensation away as she stepped back instead, looking over the impassive barrier.
“If you think… one stupid piece of metal… will stop me…” Prisoner 286 growled the words through rage-clenched teeth, focusing her concentration down to a pinpoint ahead of her on the metal wall, and summoning the full force of her Kinetics. The stress exponentially increased as she strained, and she felt the tension spike in her skull as her blood pressure skyrocketed. She managed the torrent of polarized forces conducted along the pathways of her nervous system with passion, discipline, and an insatiable hunger for revenge.
“You’re wrong.” She reached out and grabbed a relatively tiny portion of the bulkhead’s material with the intimately familiar pull of the Warp discipline, feeling the energy burning along her nerves and connecting her to the material in a way that defied both explanation and conventional physics. Then she warped the metal hard, as hard as she could, maybe as hard as was Kinetically possible. The matter and particles pulled together in the center, crowded and pressed into a too-tiny space, straining until, in an instant, the forces binding them ruptured and snapped.
As their binding forces broke apart, the chain reaction was instantaneous, the charged core of the bulkhead she’d “gripped” evaporating completely. In another fraction of a second, the energy pent up in that charged mass detonated. A tremendous amount of energy from the reaction disintegrated metal and stone alike as it exploded outward, decimating the bulkhead and rolling harmlessly off of her thick Kinetic barrier as it radiated through the air. Slag, charged debris, and plasma rained down, some of it bouncing off of her barrier.
The center of the bulwark was no more. Instead, a gaping hole into the darkness beyond rimmed in dripping, molten metal, revealed itself as her vision cleared from the flash of the explosion’s light emissions. Prisoner 286’s nerves still tingled, and she could feel a vein throbbing heavily at her temple. Mastery of the Warp discipline culminated in the ability to detonate matter by snapping its bonding forces, but that didn’t mean it was easy. It was a monumental act of will, something far too strenuous to utilize repeatedly without time to recuperate, even for her. But once was all she needed for now. She just hoped that merc-tech hadn’t been stupid and lingered near the bulkhead, hoped that the blast hadn’t killed him. That would have been too quick, and no fun for her at all.
Sucking down greedy, deep breaths, she grinned and stepped through, heading into the hidden parts of the compound. It took a moment for her eyes to further adjust, but as soon as they did, she spotted him. He stood a dim room’s breadth away, pointing in her direction and speaking to several other mercenaries, all of which readied weapons and trained them on her as she approached.
She kept helplessly grinning at him, and even lifted her hand in a friendly little wave.
Shock and horror overtook his features as he turned and ran once more, fleeing deeper into the structure. But not before delivering one final, panicked command to his compatriots, who immediately opened fire, assault rifles spewing forth a hailstorm of fully-automatic death.
In response, she roared at them. She could do that, since she was awesome; she merely augmented the force of the sound waves as she emitted them until they shook the very walls of the structure around them. She found it really messed with people’s heads. The mercenaries stumbled from the force, their aim wavering, but they quickly trained their sights on her again, not as scared as she had expected them to be. As they should have been.
How dare they? WHO DO THEY THINK I AM? The words pounded ravenously through her head as a portion of her grin turned to gritted teeth, clenched painfully tight as her temper flared and her lip curled in derision. She took several steps forward, and the hail of concentrated gunfire intensified, magazines emptying and quickly replaced in turns by practiced soldier’s hands. A dozen, two dozen, fifty, then well over a hundred bullets hung suspended in her barrier, with many times that ricocheting energetically aside into the surrounding environment.
“No one…” Her voice was a low rumble, a monstrous growl, a promise of retribution. At the edges of her barrier, where it was weakest, she dimly felt a couple of strips of skin torn free as hot fast metal grazed her, but the sensation felt far away, and was getting further by the moment. “No one hurts me!” Something impacted her hard enough that she finally felt it and it stumbled her slightly, but despite the tangible impact, Prisoner 286 didn’t even wince. No one hurts me and lives. The red tint around the edges of her vision rapidly crept in, soon saturating the entirety of her view with its violent haze.
“NEVER!” She bellowed. With that shout of mixed glee and rage, a surge of Kinetic energy exploded out of her, devouring her protective barrier a
s it went and hurling all of the suspended projectiles outward. All of the force her barrier had absorbed suddenly reversed, powerfully enhanced, and slung itself violently back at her unprepared aggressors in an instant. NEVER AGAIN.
The closest of the mercenaries caught the full brunt of the explosive force, and the storm of metal suspended within shredded them before they could even cry out, rendering them into so much useless meat piled upon the floor. The satisfaction of the sight made her smile all the broader, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough, and they deserved so much more.
The blast staggered and stunned the mercenaries that it didn’t kill outright; none of them were able to take advantage of her momentary vulnerability as, with a casual gesture, she restored her barrier, the dark energy sheath swelling potently outward from her body as it returned to its full force. They moved dazedly to defend and protect themselves, a fact she was only dimly aware of as she stared down at them, face contorting with the intensity of her disregardant mirth and outrage. These people were nothing to her. She reached out with her Kinetics buzzing along her nerves and proved it, grabbing the closest mercenary and simply smashing them into a pulp on the ground.
Insects. She bid an area of space to warp at her whim and it did so, two more enemies drawn in within a moment and crushed down to a wet sphere only a little larger than her head. How dare they try to hurt her? They were nothing. She lifted another forcefully, flipping them over as she did, so that they'd have time to recognize their fate and scream before impaling deeply onto an unlucky stalactite. What hope do any of you have?
One more, perhaps an attractive woman under the fragments of shattered helmet, held up her arms as if if trying to fend her off, or perhaps pleading for mercy. But to Prisoner 286, she barely even registered as a person. Beg if you like, nothing will save you from me now. She gave the woman a cruel grin as she caught the top and bottom halves of her body between opposing forces and wrenched, easily sundering her pathetic frame in a satisfying spray.
Something moved behind her, towards her, and 286 felt it with her Kinetic's senses. She turned away from the bloody shower she’d just created in time to catch a grenade with her power, suspending it for a brief moment, just long enough to let the thrower to see her amused smile, and despair. Then, barking a single note of laughter, she stuffed it brutally through his chestplate and let it explode.
Only one of the mercenaries still survived, his body partially shielded from the earlier explosions by chance and his companions’ bodies. Leaning against a wall, he staggered, weaponless, one arm shredded, trying in vain to hold onto his footing. He stared up at her, panting with an exhausted sort of fear, the only thing she saw still moving in the room. She didn’t really care about him, though. She was done here, and she had been delayed too long now from the one that truly deserved her attentions.
Prisoner 286 picked the hapless man up, casually crushing him a little as she did so, and tossed him far down the hallway in the direction she was headed. Then she connected herself to a more distant point, as far off as she could see, and the force of her Kinetic charge tore him in half as she impacted his battered body in midair. She was gone before the blood even struck the ground, jumping again and again, charging through hallways and rooms heedless and unaware of her surroundings, bypassing guardposts and even streaking by other small groups of surprised mercenaries.
You. She spotted him again, and he wasn’t getting away this time; nothing else even existed in the red haze of her vision. He tried to keep running, but she caught him with Kinetics, twisting one of his legs brutally until it snapped and slamming him to the rough stone ground, dragging him agonizingly across it. He tried to shoot her, but she was only distantly aware of the futile attempt as she gripped him with her power, lifting him helplessly off of the ground and restraining him in a mockery of gravity and his resistance alike.
Breathing intently, excitedly, through the clenched teeth supporting her jagged grin, Prisoner 286 strode over to her prey, putting her face right in front of his as she channeled just a fraction of her anger into the palm of her hand. She hungered for more revenge than his death could satisfy, but it was a start. She was sure there were a lot more people still in the compound, after all.
286 plunged a fist wreathed in dark, pulsing, energy directly through his armor plating with a satisfying crunch, embedding it deep into the vulnerable softness of his stomach. Contained within that fist was a tiny packet of warped space, rotating, twisting on its own, straining hungrily to pull in outside matter and wreathed in its own event horizon of distorted light. Prisoner 286 shoved her grin into the mercenary’s face and opened her fist, releasing her little present, a thing of twisted space, heat, and the promise of slow agony.
Of course, the man did what anyone in his position would have done. He screamed until the ire of the singularity stole his last breath.
17.3 - Merlo
A gloved hand clenched, a calloused finger pulled a trigger, and several things happened at once, all too quickly for Merlo’s dazed head to sort through easily. Merlo launched herself through the air as powerfully as she could, straight at the man with the gun pointed at her Captain’s head. Branwen spun, as if she’d somehow known he was there all along, leaning out of the line of fire and twisting to bring her blade slashing down on his weapon.
Merlo impacted the mercenary heavily but awkwardly, hard enough to drive the breath from both of them in an audible whoosh. Branwen’s sabre ripped through the air, and the front half of a combat shotgun tumbled impotently to the ground. A mercenary slammed to the packed earth, crushing exotic grass and flowers with Merlo still tangled atop him. The girl shook her head in a somewhat ineffectual attempt to clear it, and looked up to see Branwen towering over them both as they lay on the ground, the lethal edge of her sword coming to rest close to the vulnerable flesh of the prone mercenary’s throat.
“Surrender.” The Captain said simply, her tone unforgiving shades of ice and steel. Underneath her, however, Merlo felt the shift of his slow movement, the shift of his weight as an arm moved slowly toward one leg. It took her a second longer than it should have, but she realized what he was doing; the pilot casually slapped her good hand over his face, the port in her palm obediently opening as she did so. He promptly stopped reaching for the gun, spasmed, and fell unconscious, all in short order.
The advanced mechanics of her suit kept any electrical impulses from arching back into her and gripping the man’s head for an extended moment to ensure his defeat, she finally released his mildly smoking face with half a grin and a shrug directed toward her Captain.
“That works, too.” Branwen commented, sheathing her blade easily after scanning the grounds, then leaning down to help haul the injured Merlo to her feet. They gripped arms, and Merlo found herself nearly torso-to-torso with her Captain, staring up into her face. “How badly are you hurt?”
It took her a moment to catch her breath, so she leaned on the Captain meanwhile and let the tall, stalwart woman support some of her weight. Her heart pounded in her chest; a sudden swirling of intense emotions rushing to the surface, feelings that ran deeper than she had ever consciously realized.
“You… I think you just saved my life.” Merlo laughed shakily, marvelling at the trembling in her limbs, a cocktail blended of sudden, deep-seated emotion and the battle-adrenaline abruptly draining from her veins. "Bran..." She lifted her face and met Branwen's eyes, and her breath caught in her throat as hot tears stung in her eyes.
This woman was her captain, her commanding officer, and she would do anything for her; Merlo had proven she would gladly give her life for her Captain, that she would die defending her. But obviously, Branwen wasn’t willing to allow that to happen. Unlike what Merlo remembered of Starlance, Branwen had shown that she cared for Merlo very much as a person, even as a friend, instead of just as a soldier.
Branwen had come back to save her.
"Thanks..." She forced a weak smile, unaware of how firmly she gripped
her captain's arm as she clung to her.
In response, the Captain leaned over her, touching her firmly under the chin, faces close enough that Merlo could feel the Captain’s warm breath, the cadence of it still quickened from combat. Branwen leaned in closer, her clear blue eyes roaming over Merlo’s face before finding the pilot’s sterling eyes and lingering there for several long breaths. Merlo’s chest tightened in anticipation; a sudden warmth bloomed throughout her body, the admixture of longing muddled with tension and unbidden fear. The Captain lifted a hand to brush the hair back from her young pilot’s face, then slid it around to the back of her neck…
And turned her head to the side, checking her over for further injuries. “No concussion, I think. Maybe a minor one?” Merlo abruptly realized she’d been standing there a long moment, not really answering Branwen’s query with any useful words, but instead just staring into her face as if lost. She felt the warm rush of blood to her cheeks, but she was already so overheated from fighting for her life that no one this side of the Kalaset would notice. At least she hoped so. “How long will it take your suit to tend to your injuries?”
“Not too long… It’s got to repair itself, first, and…” Something past the emotions of the current moment prodded her train of thought. “Bran!” Merlo’s thoughts suddenly cleared, pushing past the haze of confusing emotions and bodily traumas. “286… Something happened to her. We’ve got to go find her, Captain. Please.”
Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) Page 36
