With nothing more than an indicatory nod from the Captain, Zimi was off, rushing across the chamber to examine the far door. Branwen paused for a moment, perusing the armaments on display, and wishing she had more time to examine some of them, like the large, two-handed maul that stood near her, inexplicable technological advancements obvious on its business end. On her way to the other side of the room, she paused to pocket a couple of extra shielding emitters: solid, octagonal devices with metal plating and some sort of gel-like “lens” in the center on one side.
Branwen didn’t have the first clue what “quantum electron screening” was, but she now knew firsthand that it worked, otherwise, she likely would have died to gunfire shortly after coming to Merlo’s rescue a few minutes ago. Either way, she figured these particular shielding devices were much better quality than what she was currently equipped with, and she felt that she could do far worse than helping a few of them find their way into the hands of her crew. Certainly much better than the use they were being put to here, defending the lives of sell-swords and slavers.
She pulled off her own shielding device from where it was fastened onto her sword belt and clipped one of the new ones on in its place, flipping it into active mode as she did so. Unlike the last one, this emitter had a vague “hum” of energy that was barely perceptible, yet subtly annoying. However, she found it was no more distracting than wearing plate armor for protection, and certainly a whole lot more comfortable.
At Zimi’s beckoning, Branwen once again acted the part of salvage technician, using her one-of-a-kind war blade to saw a section free of the reinforced wall. But as soon as the task was done, she paced over to the door, propping her stolen shield up against the wall and readying her axe and sword; if nothing else, she could give Zimi some room to work while she stood watch. At least Branwen hadn't been forced to leave any corpses scattered about this room that would have bothered the poor girl. Concealed to the side of the entryway, she settled herself into a ready stance to wait, though she didn’t have to wait very long. Seemingly emboldened or encouraged by her success with bypassing the previous security, Zimi cracked the sanctity of this door even faster than the last one. She called her success out to Branwen in a soft voice that barely carried across the intervening distance, and Branwen was just about to call out her own congratulations in return when a prickle along her spine stilled her tongue.
It was that warrior’s instinct; the well-honed feeling that she could never explain but that nonetheless had kept her alive and relatively intact as a veteran combatant, that intuitive knowledge of her surroundings that had saved her from many an ambush. After such a day as this, Branwen didn’t think once not to trust it. As something, someone, moved furtively outside the door she guarded, Branwen rushed out to meet them, stepping right into their path with her blade close to her torso, ready to press deep into the intruder’s body.
A startled voice cried out, “Whoa!” and Branwen managed to pull up just short of testing how good her pilot’s sophisticated nanotech armor was, turning her blade to the side and almost stumbling gracelessly into Merlo with their combined momentum. “I surrender, Captain,” the girl said with a light, tight smile, looking far better than she had a few minutes ago. As Branwen regained her balance and stepped back, she saw that the suit once again covered the majority of Merlo’s body, and though one arm still hung mostly limp, suit clinging tightly to it in thickening ribbons, she seemed much less pale and more alert than before.
“Well, you seem to be looking better. More or less.” She eyed the girl again and motioned for her to step into the chamber with her, out of the relative straightaway of the entrance tunnel. “I thought I told you to stay put.”
Merlo shrugged. “Sorry Captain, but I started hearing some sounds out there, and I figured I didn’t want to get caught by anyone coming in from the outside. Besides, I’m feeling a lot better. My suit has sealed most of the breaches in my skin and replenished some of my lost blood, though I’m really hungry now. I guess my arm’s seen better days, too.”
Branwen nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Wow. This is one Hel of an armory, huh? So this is where they got all of those guns and stuff on short notice. I guess Stone being into arms dealing was no joke, huh Bran?” Merlo stepped further into the room, staring around at the various tools of war held at the ready and on display. “Not bad.”
“It seems that weapons dealing is the very least of his activities.” Gesturing over Merlo’s head, Branwen caught Zimi’s attention, summoning her quietly over to their position. “If Merlo is right and someone is coming in behind us, I want to delay them and protect us. Can you close this door back off, in a manner so that they cannot simply open it again easily?”
Zimi puffed out a breath, seeming to try and muster up her normal attitude despite the circumstances. “Ain’t no problem, Cap’n. You should try’n ask me something difficult, next time.” She grinned weakly at Branwen, setting the door to closing again behind them with a quick motion, then going to work on one of the panels on its back side. The metal plate popped free with an easy twist of a sleek tool produced from one of the myriad pockets on her outfit, and Zimi went to work on its wire-work entrails. “I got this, Cap’n. Why don’t you two head on down? I’ll just hide once I get this settled. I mean, time’s a-wastin’ right?”
“You are certain that you will be safe?”
“Wouldn’ tell ya so if it weren’t true, Cap’n.” The girl smiled over at Branwen bravely, and the Captain had to repress an urge to hug her. Maybe later, when she wasn’t covered in other people’s blood and miscellaneous viscera bits.
“Merlo.” The other young girl looked up from where she stood near the door that lead further on, obviously eager to move. “Let us go rescue your girlfriend.” A thick, rolling boom accompanied the words, lending them an almost ominous, ironic quality.
17.7 - Prisoner 286
Hacker guy must have been someone pretty damn important, because all of that screaming and crying of his had brought a lot of people running to help him. Now their blood and bone decorated the chamber he’d died in. Turns out body armor doesn't help much against the rippling force of a shockwave.
Not that she was completely unscathed. Prisoner 286 bore a plethora of flesh wounds and several substantial bruises from where the mercenaries had organized and brought out heavier weapons to try and bring her down: high powered rifles and rounds warped by Kinetic energy, specifically formed to transfer high amounts of energy to their target. In the end, of course, it had been futile, serving to only send them running to their deaths one and all. 286 knew none of the wounds she bore were severe, so she simply didn’t let herself feel them. She still had other things to attend to.
In front of her, some poor fool too mentally flacid to learn from the examples she’d made of everyone else bellowed a challenge and rushed her, both hands gripping one of those large shock hammers they seemed so fond of here. Driven by adrenaline and experience, time seemed to dilate, and 286 just stared him down, waiting impatiently for him to reach her.
286 plucked the heavy weapon out of his hands as he swung it, his thick muscles no match for her Urebai-gravity and Kinetics-enhanced might. Putting the full force of her arms and shoulders behind the swing, she spun full circle and struck him solidly, the terrific force of the blow crushing his gut and sending him flying thirty meters into a wall, to crumple easily with an accompanying sound of crunching bones and armor.
She felt the impact as another melee weapon smashed down onto her Kinetic barrier; someone else, who 286 hadn’t even been remotely aware of until now, must have snuck up behind her. Without even turning, she felt the head of the weapon deform as her protective field redirected the enhanced force behind the blow, feeding it right back into the offending object and along the haft into its wielder. 286 whipped her head around as she turned, punching a fist effortlessly through the female mercenary’s armored chestplate, then snarling with a moment’s concentration as she set th
e woman’s molecules ablaze from the inside.
Then Prisoner 286 grasped the weapon she still held in both hands, raising it high overhead and bringing it whistling down with all of her might and an accompanying shout of fury. Blood sprayed and ablative plating crunched as she smashed her offending foe to the ground, snarling and raising the weapon once more, only to bring it down again, over and over.
“Who else?” She shouted, the statement shifting into a wordless screech of rage as she worked, smashing the twisted metal of the hammer over and over into the woman’s limp form, crushing her to a pulpy mass. Only after her enemy’s remains were well-unrecognizable did 286 cease her assault, her breaths coming harsh and hard. “Who else wants to die?” She bellowed as she straightened, the enhanced sound of the challenge resonating along empty corridors and bare walls, across sightless eyes to only to fall upon dead, useless ears.
Then, all was silent. She discarded the warped remnants of the weapon she held, the twisted metal of its haft ringing when it struck the stone floor, obscenely loud in the otherwise empty silence but still barely audible over the pulse hammering deafeningly in her ears. Finished with all visible targets, she was vaguely aware of how her pulse throbbed, her vision red from rage and swollen blood vessels.
286 paused to run a hand through her wet hair, listening to the heavy, rhythmic thump of her blood pressure pounding against the inside of her skull, symptoms of using her Kinetics too hard for too long. Enough to kill any lesser Kinetic, she supposed.
It seemed as though a handful of absent moments passed as she caught her breath before another sound finally caught her attention. The Prisoner turned slowly, grinning so hard her face ached from the strain, and spotted more targets: this time a smaller soldier in a tight, armored bodysuit, and another beside her with her drawn weapon crackling distinctly with some kind of energy in the low lighting. Upon meeting her eyes, the one with the melee weapon fell into a defensive stance, putting herself slightly between 286 and her companion, as if that could possibly do any good.
Energy surged almost painfully through 286’s veins and along the pathways of her nerves as she flexed her Kinetics once more, but she couldn’t smile any broader.
17.8 - Merlo
“Six!” Merlo had no idea what had happened down here, but all of the corpses strewn liberally about and the other signs of wanton destruction encouraged some pretty wild speculation on her part. She was glad that 286 was alive, but whether she could be called “alive and well” was still up in the air. The wild, bloodshot look in her hazel eyes as she grinned manically and stared down at Merlo and Branwen chilled her. The profound lack of recognition made some voice in the back of her mind suggest emphatically that maybe, just maybe, she should be running.
Instead, Merlo told that stupid little voice to shut it and edged forward, arms out to the side, moving slowly forward between the Captain and Prisoner 286. Thankfully, the Captain moved her sabre aside to allow Merlo passage and stood her ground, though she was clearly still on alert.
“Six? Hey, can you hear me?” Merlo slowly raised her hands, holding them open and empty, out to her sides. The Prisoner turned her head to the side in response, tilting it oddly in a rather unnatural, almost birdlike motion. Her fists were still clenched, and Kinetic energy still emanated thickly from her, an intimidating nimbus that warped the nearby light into a wide, distorted halo around her figure. “It’s me, Merlo. You know, from the ship?” She hesitated briefly. “Your girlfriend?”
The other woman didn’t seem to hear her, still grinning down at her with a vicious, blood-streaked smile that was also somehow a sneer. But then the Prisoner blinked, finally, tossing her head as she did so as if attempting to clear her eyes. Calm, or something that passed for it, seemed to settle over her suddenly, the crazed expression doused as surely as if it had been quenched with a bucket of cold water. Beneath it all, however, Merlo could tell that some degree of anger or hate still seethed, just out of immediate reach.
“Merlo? When’d you get here?” 286 kept grinning at her, but it changed tone and she could tell the woman knew who she was now. The tall Kinetic swiped her arm across the blood spattered on her face and dripping from her hair, but her fist was soaked as well. She ended up just smearing it liberally across her face uncaringly, the white of her teeth smiling manically through the red. “You missed it.” She gestured around proudly at the bodies surrounding her.
“Yeah, no. There was plenty of action upstairs, too. You okay?” She eased closer to 286 and put out a comforting hand, though she stopped short of actually touching the Prisoner just yet.
“Yeah, that’s good.” There was an absent, offhanded tone to her voice, as if she still wasn’t completely here. That seeming absence worried Merlo, concern rising for the woman she’d come to care for. 286 was a little scary even at the best of times, but this was different.
“Looks like someone fucked up your arm.” Prisoner 286 ran her hand through her hair again, slicking it back once more with fluids that had once occupied the inside of a human.
“Um, yeah. But it’ll be okay.” She finally stepped up close to Prisoner 286 and put a hand to the woman’s arm, which was also splattered liberally with red. “Have you seen anyone down here other than these soldier guys? Stone’s supposedly holding the Kala, and maybe some other people, down here somewhere.”
286 tilted her head oddly again, as if considering. “Maybe I remember something like that, cells or something back there. I dunno. Just follow the trail of bodies, you can’t miss it.” She twitched and jerked her arm up, indicating further back past her in the dark beyond with an unsteady thumb.
“You sure you’re okay, Six? You look kinda banged up around the edges, and I’m pretty sure some of that blood is yours.” Merlo squeezed 286’s arm gently, perhaps more for her own comfort than for the Prisoner’s.
The woman flashed her a wider, vicious grin again. “Yeah, but you should see the other guy.” Merlo wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but stopped short of asking as Prisoner 286 glanced around, suddenly seeming more alert, as if looking for something. “Hey, where’s the other one? I thought there was one more of you guys.”
Beside Merlo, Branwen’s expression darkened. “Zimi is above us, in the armory. Safe.”
“Armory, huh. Well, you guys go find these people or whatever, I’m gonna go see if Stone’s got any explosives.” She grinned. “Time to light this place up, then wipe it off the map.” The grin got only deeper. “You might should hurry.”
And with that, she strode off, passing between the two of them on her way back up, and starting to whistle tunelessly. Merlo just blinked after her, almost starting when Branwen put a hand on her own arm.
“We should go. We need to free those that are confined here, if indeed they still live.” Branwen glanced back at 286’s departing shadow, expression still somewhat dark. “Eventually, Stone will send others here, or the Urzran authorities will become involved. We need to be gone before that happens.” The Captain turned and strode in the opposite direction from 286, toward the way she had indicated, into the only real passage leading deeper into the complex.
After a moment of looking back to see 286’s departure, Merlo jogged a few steps to catch back up with the Captain. “Are you okay, Bran?”
The older woman nodded. “Close enough. I only hope she has not harmed those we came here seeking.”
“You don’t think she’d do that, do you, Captain?”
“I think that Prisoner 286 was not fully in control of herself, and that she is very dangerous.” The Captain sighed, seeming to let out some of her negative emotions in the breath. “I am trying very hard not to dislike her, for your sake.”
Merlo sighed heavily and looked down, flexing her injured arm to test it. At least the suit was mostly covering it now, and she could begin to move the arm again without it hurting. “I’m sorry, Bran.”
Branwen shook her head, eyes still straining forward into the dim. “It is nothing to feel so
rry about.”
They walked in silence for a few long seconds, but the oppressive rock and death all around them bid Merlo to speak again, instinctively seeking conversation to drive away the shadowy discomfort of the present. “So Stone’s a slaver, huh? Disgusting. I can hardly believe it.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I guess that’s why Medlava and, well, everybody said… That something seemed really off and dislikable about him. I guess the whole ‘human trafficking’ thing showed through somehow.”
The Captain nodded. “Slavery is extremely uncommon in the cluster, though indentured servitude is a practice still upheld on much of Urzra, and is similar in some ways. The former is punishable by death on my homeworld. The latter is permissible, but still rather frowned upon, thanks to the potential for abuse.” She glanced sidewardly at Merlo, an intent expression visible in the depths of her eyes. “I do not appreciate those that engineer others’ circumstances so as to control them, or to use them.”
Another of those Fade taboos, then. Not that Merlo could blame them. No wonder the Captain seemed so grim. Merlo looked up as they passed through a dark area where all the lights were damaged, exiting the room through a security door, twisted and torn free of its hinges. “I can’t believe she did all of this, all by herself.”
Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) Page 38
