Nova

by Lora E. Rasmussen

  In silence, the two quickly unpacked the climbing gear their survival kits contained; harnesses, grapplers, and boot–slips that were designed to surface–lock onto any natural or constructed material with a series of applied pressure signals. They slipped the gear into place and attached the lead rope to one another. Serros took point due to the advantages provided by her Arca PV enhanced strength and TXL augmented vision.

  After each fired their cylindrical grapplers, the spear points drilling into stone way above ground, Serros rapidly began the climb, thumbing the cord retraction switch and using her feet to balance and maintain distance from the surface. Avara could hear K’llan following closely behind as she concentrated on good placement and stability.

  She had to admit that there was an eerie beauty to the experience, moonlight spilling down upon them and bejeweling the waters below, air turning crisp and cool with the absence of the trinary suns.

  Despite the significant aid provided by the grappler, it was hard climbing and even with two rest stops, before long Avara noted that her entire body was sheeted in perspiration. Having finally crested the gorge and taking just a few minutes to recover, the two then continued their journey turned to a hunt. They ran at an Arca eating pace until they had just about reached the first position their attackers had been.

  After scouting the area, they stealthily moved forward and found the two remaining bodies that hadn’t tumbled into the waters below when Serros shot them. One was indeed a Grey and the other a Karukai. They had been totally stripped of their equipment, including clothing, and left to rot where they’d fallen.

  After careful inspection, K’llan spied a shallow boot print, heading in the same direction as Outpost J2. “I would say that there are at least three, maybe more.”

  Kneeling down next to K’llan, Avara spotted the broken thorn of a thistle–bush and another quarter print. “I think you’re right; might be as many as half a dozen.”

  The companions then continued their journey, making their way parallel to another, smaller river that fed into the main canyon’s waterway, about a quarter of a mile to the west. The hour had reached somewhere near midnight before they found a trace of the quarry again. Or more precisely, their targets found them in the form of an ambush.

  Catching the barest flicker of movement, Avara half shoved K’llan to the left as she rolled to the right, pistol drawn mid–motion. Her first shot chipped into the rock of the boulder–fall that the Karukai Grey who’d just fired at them hid behind.

  The second two hit another Karukai’s left gun–hand then neck. Even as Avara’s target was tumbling to the rocky ground, K’llan’s bullets spliced into the Karukai’s companion, another Grey. Despite the speed and skill of the Human Quorum Shield and former Vosaia STF Agent, Avara felt like molten lava had been sadistically dribbled onto her flesh as luck ran out, and no less than three rounds ripped into her hip, abdomen, and shoulder with deadly accuracy.

  As an immediate reaction, she called on a K–Shield for the second time today, this time in the form of a guardian dome. With a half–scream of pain, Avara dropped to one knee, still holding the shield and pistol both as she frantically searched for their adversaries. Finally, she spotted them. Four Karukai lying in wait behind her and across from their clone comrades that they’d just so deliberately used as expendable fodder to distract K’llan and Avara long enough to successfully take down at least one of them.

  Serros could feel her life’s blood racing down from her stomach to her knee, soaking through fabric and dripping into the thirsty sand below.

  Fucking bastards.

  They were completely protected from bullet fire behind their natural barricade, and it would be near to impossible for her to move fast enough to drop her shield and throw a grenade or get behind them with her injury before being taken out by their rifles.

  Suddenly, a trio of shots rang out from behind and to her left, splattering the face of another Karukai sneaking up behind her.

  “Avara, now!” K’llan’s cry chased her bullets and, seeing the moment of startlement causing the other Karukai to shuffle behind their cover, Serros knew immediately what K’llan was urging her to do. Moving her arms with a heavy, slamming motion, Avara magnified and pushed out the kobalt energy she’d been gathering. She dropped her shield entirely a split second before hurling the K–Blast at their adversaries.

  With a scream reminiscent of metal slats scraped against one another by the violence of a storm, the Karukai cried out as they and the entire rock grouping they’d been hiding behind were torn from the earth and hurled some thirty feet through the air to land and tumble in a sickening series of thuds.

  “Avara!” K’llan was at her side in a split second, holding onto her as she dropped to the ground. Issuing a quick survey with her CPA, the Vosaia announced, “You have three bullets lodged within your flesh: one in your hip, another in your shoulder, and a third in your lower abdomen. We have to remove them immediately before you bleed out.” K’llan was already ripping open the med–kit she carried.

  “No, wait,” Avara started, her voice horse. She could hear the bubbling sound of fluid in her throat, and didn’t need to be told what it was. “Just… give me a shot of Adrenix and a spray of coagulant. We… have to make sure… they’re all dead.”

  “These are all potentially fatal wounds!” K’llan vehemently declared, ignoring Serros as she began to get to work. “I do not give a damn about…”

  Grabbing K’llan’s wrist, Serros barely managed to spit out “We must be sure… to be safe.”

  Avara could see the conflict in K’llan’s radiant purple eyes, could feel the intense fear she felt for Serros’s safety.

  “Please… trust me, K’llan.”

  Avara could feel the flare of defiant anger, but nevertheless, K’llan quickly removed a syringe and shot a pea–sized dose of Adrenix into Avara’s arm, followed by first sterile–wiping then spraying the wounds. The relief was immediate and so sweet that tears gathered in the corners of Avara’s eyes. With a ragged breath, Avara muttered, “Help me up.”

  Z’arr did not protest this time, but the firm grasp she had about Serros’s waist radiated both protection and a certain sense of possessiveness.

  “Let’s go.”

  The thirty foot trek was anything but easy, each step a low burn of agony despite the numbing agent in her meds, and she leaned heavily on K’llan for support. Though it felt like forever, Serros knew that they had reached the location in a relatively short period of time. Sure enough, the final three Karukai lay bloody and broken on the ground, two entirely crushed under the rocks that had sailed with them. The third lay a short distance away, covered in earth and pebbles, one leg bent at an entirely unnatural angle and her right arm a crushed pulp of flesh, bone, and sinew. She was wheezing loudly.

  Summoning a last reserve of strength fueled more by stubborn determination than Arca enhanced power or constitution, Avara released her hold on K’llan and slowly moved forward, studying the Karukai as she did. She was of medium height and had a strong build. Her eyes were a bright, cinnamon tone, and her paper–white skin was thoroughly smudged with dirt and grime that blended with her natural red markings. She was also dressed as a Senior Karukai Officer in travel worn, red–accented black.

  Carefully kneeling down next to the wounded Karukai, Avara asked in a low voice “Are you the last from the pods?”

  Coughing, the Karukai shifted defiant, muted red eyes to Avara. “Why should I tell you, lassar?”

  Avara fought down a surge of anger at the term. In the Karukai dialect, the word roughly meant both ‘lesser being’ and ‘desirable sustenance source’ at the same time. It was a deliberate insult. “You are dying. Think about your options.”

  The Karukai laughed, bloody froth staining her lips. “Why don’t you think about your options, Human? You use that med–kit I know you are carrying, and I will be gracious enough to take you as my Concubine. I can tell,” she said with a sneering half–smile a
s her eyes roved Serros’s face and more, attempted to catch glimpses of her very soul, “that you would be… very sweet.”

  The Karukai’s hunger was a living thing, her desire to Feed driven by a sense of personal right, cultural imperative, and the injuries that were draining the very life from her.

  Avara could sense the rush of white hot rage that suffused K’llan’s entire being at the Karukai’s mocking invitation, and the muzzle of the Vosaia’s pistol appeared directly before the Karukai’s head as if conjured by magic.

  Feeling her flesh and soul crawl from the exchange, Avara shook her head at Z’arr, a silent command to hold off. “Are you the last?” An image of all the dead aboard the TS Ardent swam to the forefront of Avara’s vision as she waited for an answer that did not come.

  When only continued silence and that same sneering smile greeted her repeated question, Avara calmly placed her right knee on the woman’s chest and removed her knife hilt. With her left hand, Serros activated the micro–assembler, durexium blade flash–forged before her eyes. Serros then took the pommel of the hilt and quite deliberately, started crushing the fleshy mass of the Karukai’s ruined right arm, slowly creating more and more force.

  Even when the woman began screaming, left arm futilely flailing at Avara’s right shoulder, Avara continued to inexorably increase the pressure. Soon the Karukai Officer began sobbing in pain and crying out for Serros to stop, her whole body heaving to escape the Captain’s body–weight and her suffering.

  Minutes slipped by before Captain Serros finally released the pressure, and then with her face and eyes set into a cold mask, she softly asked again, “Are there any more Karukai from the life–pods?”

  “No, no, no, please, no….” The pale woman cried, tears trailing down her face and snot slipping from her nose. “We were the last… we lost two to the jakhri, and the others you slew.”

  “Are we likely to run into patrols from Outpost J2?”

  After the barest hesitation, the Karukai answered “No.”

  “Tell me about Outpost J2.”

  “I… I cannot. I gave a soldier’s oath. I cannot.” The Karukai responded, bald head sheened in sweat that dripped down her face to mingle with tears, mucus, and blood. “Please… I swore.”

  “If my companion and I were taken by you and your soldiers, what would you do?” Avara asked in a dangerously reasonable voice. Something about her tone convinced the Karukai to answer, and answer truthfully.

  “We would… imprison you, and though you would be interrogated, you would not be permanently damaged. You would be enslaved… made an Officer’s prize. You, and your Vosaia, would be very valued as such.”

  “To be Fed on?” Avara asked, her tone as chill and measured as ice.

  Coughing again, the dying Karukai nodded weakly, looking from Avara, to K’llan, then back to the Human. “Like I said, you both are great prizes. You would have the honor of being made Concubines rather than labor or a basic Feeding source. In time, if you took the Oath, you would be released and granted full Karukai citizenship status.”

  Serros nodded once in affirmation of the expected answer, even as she felt K’llan’s soul shriek with a combination of anger and loathing. “What is your name, Karukai?”

  “Sub–Lieutenant Icha Hyre.” The Karukai responded, a small sliver of weary hope fluttering in her eyes.

  Avara nodded again, then stood without taking her gaze from the Karukai woman’s. Pressure entirely released, the Karukai whimpered, sucking air into demanding lungs.

  “For your honesty, Sub–Lieutenant Icha Hyre, I respect your soldier’s oath, and I will show you the honor we would wish for if in your place.”

  With a single, fluid movement, Avara drew and fired her pistol, the shot cracking through the night and striking dead center in Icha Hyre’s forehead to carve a quarter–sized hole though skin, bone, and brain, killing the woman instantly.

  CHAPTER 22

  After Sub–Lieutenant Hyre slumped lifelessly to the ground, Avara turned to K’llan and hoarsely proclaimed “We need to strip them of any useful gear.”

  With a single sympathetic squeeze of Avara’s arm, K’llan replied, “Yes. I will do it. You rest.”

  With help, Avara shuffled a few paces away and leaned against one of the upturned rocks she had sent flying through the air, focusing all her effort on breathing and keeping the pain in check. Unable to use Synergy to heal before the bullets were removed, every moment was a never ending agony.

  She waited as patiently as she could as K’llan made quick work of the task. Z’arr returned to Avara with three pistols, two rifles, a bunch of CDs, two med kits, another bedroll, a second portable generator, and four canteens in tow. Two were filled to the brim with consolidated hydro–fluid, the others empty. K’llan peered closely at Avara, then asserted “We should stay.”

  Shaking her head, Avara replied, “We need to leave here before the jakhri come; the scent of blood will draw them.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, K’llan nodded then reached out to steady Serros as the two of them began their trek, keeping the stream to their left. The going was painfully slow, each step a journey in excruciation. They stopped only once, to administer another dose of Adrenix, then continued on. Despite the chill evening air, Avara’s skin glistened with perspiration and she could feel her short locks sticking to her forehead. Every breath was a ragged song. Finally, after having traveled about three miles away from the dead Karukai and quarter of a mile from the rivulet, with a half stumble, Avara called a halt. She was simply unable to move any further.

  With the Captain resting against a low lying boulder in a half–sit up position atop the new bedroll, K’llan set about placing their security nodes in record time, then used Arca speed to travel to the stream and back for two water–filled canteens. Serros didn’t need to ask to know she had inserted purification tabs into the procured river water.

  Despite her exquisite gentleness, Avara still gasped in pain as the Vosaia carefully removed the Shield’s Karukai jacket and Ministry standard issue tank top, leaving Avara bare–chested. She also slid Serros’s trousers below her left hip to her pelvic bone to reveal the final injury. The air caused Avara’s skin to prickle with cold and she involuntarily shifted, then cried out in pain with the movement. She could feel the spill of warm fluid as her abdomen and hip wounds were fully reopened and began to once more weep blood.

  With her face set into an almost marble–like mask of cool professionalism, despite the thrill of worry Serros sensed bubble forth, K’llan fell into her training and carefully reexamined the wounds with both her naked eye and CPA. She then took out a med–wipe and swabbed each injured portion of flesh. After, she shot Avara with a third dose of Adrenix that made the Captain’s heart pound with muted adrenaline and pain–inhibiting, half–lucid euphoria. Z’arr then prepared surgical tweezers and a medical derma–laser. Using her CPA to exactly paint the proper point, K’llan positioned the slender, retractable tweezers and sought out the hip bullet. Even with Adrenix coursing through her system, Avara could feel the questing prongs, like a worm attempting to bore into her flesh. Though water filled her eyes and coursed down her cheeks, the Captain stymied the impulse to move so as not to distract K’llan from her delicate work.

  After a few minutes, Serros could feel a flare of triumph from her companion as she withdrew the first durexium slug, glistening both red and silver in the generator’s dim light. K’llan sprayed the anti–bacterial and numbing coagulant agent again. Finally, she used the derma–laser to carefully fuse the open gash. After, Z’arr first turned to Avara’s abdomen and second, to her shoulder wound, more or less repeating the process.

  At the completion of her work, a sigh of exhaustion and anxiety escaped K’llan as she cleaned off her blood stained hands with the river water, then lifted a canteen to Avara’s lips. “Drink deeply.”

  It was hard to force herself to swallow the hydro–fluid, the motion especially hurting her abdominal muscles given the n
ature of that injury, but Serros knew it was important due to the amount of blood loss she’d sustained. After, K’llan used first river water and a cloth to bath Serros’s sweaty head, face, and then clean off her blood stained torso, all of which she followed up by a second thorough swiping of a fresh med–wipe, and then the application of adhesive bandages to cover each wound. Finally, after K’llan assisted Avara in donning a clean undershirt, its vermillion hue indicating that it was a spare from one of the dead Karukai, Z’arr helped Serros over to a fresh set of bedrolls.

  Lying on her back, eyelids heavy with weariness, Avara half–whispered “I’m too tapped to try and heal with Synergy right now. Think I’ve officially overtaxed myself.”

  K’llan nodded, shifting to lie on her side in the bedroll directly to Avara’s right, eyes alight with warmth. “Quite the understatement, Avara.”

  Serros knew that given her rather specialized Arca research and knowledge, of all people, K’llan understood what she was saying. Those without Arca Microtech Enhancements assumed that the biologically based nanotechnology was an easily accessible quick–fix for any and every given situation or challenge.

  It was an entirely false supposition. Yes, Arca granted abilities were incredibly useful and constituted a significant advantage. However, each type and expression had definitive limitations and demanded an enormous amount of physical vitality and energy that even the most powerful Arcas, V through X, Avara included, could neither ignore nor circumvent. No, at this point, Avara’s best bet was to let sleep and the accelerated healing rate granted by her PV to quietly take course.