by T Y Carew
Matt's blades jerked free of the mental molasses, but her control over them was brief. A sharp spike of pain drove through her skull and she instinctively fell, gasping and clutching at her skull. The white-hot rod of fire in her mind scorched away every trace of conscious thought except that she had to keep fighting. Xander shouted something in fear. Her blades clattered to the floor as Matt tore at her hair, trying to make the pain stop.
I have you.
The Anassos's voice inside her mind was smug, yet distant. It felt... distracted. Uneasy. Matt pushed against it, conscious thoughts quavering like gelatin. A blast of laser fire grazed her shoulder and Matt barely noticed. Drew jerked her away from the entryway. Something was in his hand, another flashbang. As Xander fired, Drew tossed it underhanded right underneath the Anassos. It looked down, raised its foot, and the world exploded.
Matt hadn't covered her ears, but neither had the Anassos covered the holes and stubby bones that passed for its. Her mind peeled away from the Beltine, the mental spike lessening, lessening. Matt hadn't been staring into the room when the grenade went off, so she still could see well enough to jerk back up the Adamanta blades with her mind. There was nothing fancy about the way she threw them at the Anassos. Six blades flew at the creature. Six blades pierced it. Six blades sliced it apart.
Still the spike hurt, but Matt could control herself, could think. She reached out for the wall to balance herself and found Drew instead. He helped her steady herself as her hearing slowly returned. The Dairos and Kyraos under control by the Anassos stumbled around or fell still, looking at nothing, reacting to nothing. Some of the guards charged back in, lasers cutting them down effortlessly. Matt drew her blades back to her, and prepared a pair of zappers, uneasy about what would happen now that the Beltine were dead or dying. The thought of taking down humans was never easy on her soul.
When the guards finished their grisly work, they turned, rifles raised, and Matt thought that was it, they'd either have to kill these people or be killed by them in turn. But instead, one of the guards stepped out in front of the others and lowered his weapon. Xander came towards him, his pistol still raised, ready to fire, but the others followed suit and slowly fell to their knees.
“We surrender,” the man in front said. “Please. Mercy, Adamanta.”
The other men cast uneasy glances at the fallen Anassos and Matt realized why they'd given up. She could have laughed. Here she'd been terrified of them, and they were practically wetting themselves.
Xander slowly lowered his pistol to an angle where he could bring it back up in a heartbeat and fire if need be. “We're evacuating your people back to the Exemplar. Help whoever you can along the way. Drew, take them there and lock them up.”
“What about you two?” Drew said, gesturing with the barrel of his pistol for the guards to get up. They dropped their weapons and stood, hands behind their heads.
“Plan's still the same. We're going to set the last of the charges and...” Xander glanced aside at Matt, who rubbed at her temples with her thumbs. “...and try to find Cardew and Simon.”
“Xander...” Drew said hesitantly. “Maybe Matt should go with the prisoners.”
“I'm fine,” she muttered. “Whatever's happened to Cardew, I have to know. Either she's alive and she comes back with us to face trial or she's dead and that's a weight off my mind.”
“The two of you alone, if there are more Kyraos, that’s a suicide run.”
Xander’s voice was weary and distant. “Go, Drew. That's an order.”
The tech's salute might have been a bit flippant and his eyes bore a sting like he'd been slapped, but he unslung the explosives, handed them over, and his next steps were towards the prisoners. Xander nodded at Matt and they stumbled for the largest control console as the prisoners and Drew shuffled out of the room back in the direction of the Exemplar. Xander dug out the next charge, primed it, and settled it at the base of the console. From a pouch, Matt found a bandage for her arm, and he helped her with it, tongue pressed against his cheek. His eyes looked haunted with the things they'd already seen and had to do on this hellish mining outpost, so Matt tried to smile for him. It felt fake even to her. Whatever had twisted this place had its grip on both of them.
They walked down the next corridor, expecting no more functioning Beltine. But the next room was another mirror of the horrible conveyor belt facility they'd cleaned out earlier. Instead of working, though, these Dairos were in the midst of a full-blown strange battle among themselves. They thrashed and fought and bit at one another, making high, keening sounds, none of which were quite the same. The cacophony only let up a little when one of them spied the newcomers and pointed a long, skinny finger at them. The door behind Matt and Xander slammed shut, opened, slammed shut again, opened a third of the way, and slammed shut once more.
Xander fired, and Matt worked two of her blades through the room, trying to ignore the drops of blood sliding down across her lips from a nosebleed. It didn't feel like she'd been pushing herself, but the fight against the Anassos must have drained her more than she realized. It was everything she could do to hold the swords up with her mind, let alone use them in the one-sided fight.
When the last of the Beltine fell, Xander checked the bodies, making sure they were all dead. Matt collected her blades, sheathed them, and leaned against a wall, taking the precious few minutes to recover as best she could manage. Xander rejoined her and they stepped into the next corridor, away from the bodies.
She dug out gauze for her nose, and Xander murmured, “Let me.” He wiped at her face, his motions ginger and delicate as his gray eyes searched hers. When the bleeding stopped and Matt's face was clean again, still he stood there, just inches apart.
“Something's still here,” she said.
“I know. I can sense it too, now,” Xander replied. He tossed away the gauze. His hands hovered in the air like he was unsure what they were or what he was supposed to do with them, but Xander seemed to make up his mind about something and gripped her waist gently.
Eyes closed, Matt asked, “Feels like the end, doesn't it?” Her eyes fluttered open again.
He leaned in closer, his breath hot against her upper lip. Matt drew in a deep lungful of air and reached up to cup his cheeks, loving the rough feel of his skin under hers.
“You love me?” Matt asked. It was little more than a whisper.
Xander's lips pursed into a small, exhausted smile, and he dipped his head down towards hers. His lips were chapped and warm and soft against hers, and he was gentle, so gentle as her hands slid around the back of his head, pulling him tighter, loving him right back. When he broke contact, she breathed the words back to him, and they kissed again and again, need and want fighting vainly against the knowledge that this day was not done.
When they pulled away, that same faint smile on his lips and a pleased one on hers, she held out her hand. “Whatever this is,” she said quietly, “we go together.”
“Always,” he said.
Matt's smile broke, and she started snickering. “Always?”
Xander raised an eyebrow. “You're one to talk. We go together?”
“Shush. It was romantic. You were just corny.”
The base shuddered. Structural damage from a few bursts of laser fire wouldn't affect it much, but sustained fighting like they were doing must have put stress on the self-repairing walls. Matt glanced up as a pipe groaned. When her gaze fell back down, Xander squeezed her hand and let go. The humor gone, they walked towards the next door, both somehow knowing before they got there it would slide open of its own accord, welcoming them to whatever lay beyond.
Chapter 7
Everyone who served aboard the Exemplar in that room was injured or dead, and Beltine corpses littered the ground. This had been a Pyrrhic victory, but Xander wasn't entirely sure who the winner was. A few civilians and guardsmen from the Exemplar moaned or cried out for help, but there weren't many. A Kyraos crawled towards Matt, feebly reaching out for
one last bit of violence before Xander ended it with a single shot from his pistol. Nearly out of extra clips, he drew an Adamanta knife and held it loosely on his other side.
The room was unlike any other they'd been in so far. No machinery worked, no controls filled the room. There was a simple throne-like chair and a solitary flat surface in a corner that might have been a bed. Even the doors looked different, stronger and thicker. It was remarkable in its featurelessness even by Beltine standards.
Against one wall, a big man sat upright. He bore a couple of wounds from the battle, but of anyone in the room, he seemed like the least injured. Xander started to rush for him, but a blood-spattered body in the middle of the room pushed herself onto her hands, staring at the Dairos in front of her. Her gaze rose up to Matt, and Xander swallowed hard. Cardew's face and jumpsuit were caked in blood, leaving her eyes and her teeth gleaming against the gore. She started giggling at Matt's approach, and Xander fought an urge to shoot her right there.
“I know you,” Cardew said, and giggled harder.
“We know you too, you—” Xander said.
“She's been saying that ever since that thing attacked. The Anassos.” The big man sitting against the wall pushed himself to his feet using the barrel of his rifle to balance himself. He'd been gut-shot, but the wound didn't look too terrible. Winged, maybe. A hip wound looked marginally worse, but overall, this man had been either extraordinarily talented or lucky. Both, probably. “Never seen anything like it. It just stared at her, and bam, there went the lights.”
Spittle fell from Cardew's mouth, and her head tilted forward. “I know you. I know you. I know you.”
“Out of ammo. Give me a gun and I'll shut her up,” the big man said.
“That's not happening,” Xander snapped. “She's our prisoner now and she'll see a trial for her actions here.”
“Whatever,” the big man said, and started hobbling towards the exit. “I'm getting out of here before that thing comes back.”
“We killed it,” Matt said, kneeling down to help Dr. Cardew to her feet. The doctor obliged without a struggle, and Matt tied her hands behind her back. “Few rooms back the way we came.”
The man whirled as fast as he could on his makeshift crutch. “Wait, what do you mean, back the way you came? How long ago?”
With a sinking feeling in his gut, Xander said, “Maybe... forty minutes? Big one, had a missing arm?”
“Oh no. No, no, no,” the big man muttered. He turned back towards the exit and hobbled faster.
Xander started after him. “Hey, wait a minute—”
“It’s here,” Matt warned, turning towards the room's other closed door. The colonel limped to join her. She drew a pair of Adamanta blades, he readied his laser pistol and his knife.
Cardew shouted, “I know you, I know you, I know you, I know you!” and the door slid open.
***
A second Anassos on board the refinery should have shocked Matt, but it didn't. She'd known, somewhere in the back of her mind, as Xander had, that this fight wasn't finished. They drew closer together on instinct as the creature drew up to its full height. This thing, this gaunt facsimile of an Anassos, was half the size of its fallen companion. Where its glittering black eyes should have been was instead a strip of carapace. Even blind, it didn't have any trouble seeking out its prey.
The pain, still dully thumping in Matt's head, exploded. She struggled not to fall even as Xander stumbled forward and dropped to his knees, his weapons clattering to the floor. Behind Matt somewhere, Cardew knelt, giggling or whimpering—Matt wasn't sure and couldn't afford to care. Her blades rose in the air and she tried to press the advantage before it was too late.
It fought her even as its disinterested booming voice roared in her head. The words were unintelligible, something Beltine and alien to her mind, but they evoked images—hatred, mostly, of humans and Lentarin and a dozen other races. Hatred too of its kin, a bizarre fleeting feeling of wanting to tear apart every Dairos and Kyraos left on that ship to pieces. Above all else in the creature's mind, Matt felt a savage, soul-blazing joy at the death of its brethren and having finally been freed and unleashed. She met that joy with her own ferocity, her own hatred of the Beltine for what they'd done to her, her family, her friends, the countless people she'd fought beside.
The blades did not move an inch between them. If ever Matt had been equally matched, it was by this horrific monster, this psionic thing bathed in rage and insanity.
It must have sensed this, too, because its head cocked and Matt could feel its attention drifting around the room, giving her a painful few inches with the Adamanta blades as it sought out another weapon. It refused to let go of her mind, dragging her focus along with it as it tried to rouse one of the direly wounded Kyraos or Dairos. A few managed to stagger to their feet and advance towards the defiant pair of humans at the center of the room.
Xander heaved out a breath, a name, hers, and crawled forward to cradle the laser pistol. Slowly, agonizingly, he twisted on his side and raised the pistol as the Dairos neared. His hands shook too hard to fire with any degree of accuracy, but they were too close to miss after a couple of shots, and he brought one down before the other fell on him, its spiked knuckles punching into the soft meat of his calf. He screamed, and Matt reached for him, unable to make so much as a peep as the Dairos clawed its way up Xander's body, sinking its knuckles into more flesh as it went for something vital.
The blades. The creature expected her to try and shove them towards it, but what if she did the exact opposite? Matt licked her lips. She had to try. Instead of fighting to push the blades, she yanked them backwards, and the Anassos's attention jerked back to her as the weapons hurtled towards the Dairos and the Kyraos. It couldn't fight the sudden reversal of the weapons fast enough, and they embedded themselves in their marks. The Dairos atop Xander was hit so hard the creature skidded three feet before stopping.
Xander was safe for the moment, but Matt didn't have the strength to force the blades back towards the Anassos. She struggled weakly to grab an Adamanta knife from her belt, but her fingers didn't want to work and she could barely grasp it. Sensing its victory was at hand, the Anassos probed her mind again, drawing up more memories, more painful images. Her parents swinging her as a child. Drew sharing a beer with her after her breakup with Simon. Standing with the twins on the lip of a massive waterfall moments before they all took turns jumping in. It settled on the kiss between her and Xander, delighted in it. Matt tried to yank her mind away from the memory, to protect it, to protect them, but the Anassos had already seen, and it knew how to hurt her beyond all other pain it could possibly do to her.
“It wants in,” Xander moaned. “I can't... Mattie, I can't fight it...”
“Hold on,” Matt pleaded with him.
“C-can't...” he repeated, and then his voice was gone, his mouth twisting with the pain of what he must be enduring. He scratched at his skull, fingernails digging in hard enough to draw blood, and slowly twisted to a sitting position, his knife in hand. The light in his eyes was still there. Xander pleaded with her silently as the blade he held turned towards his own chest, aiming at his heart. The Anassos was right. Watching Xander sink that knife home would break Matt like no other wound she'd suffered yet.
She grabbed at the blade in his hands with her mind, but pulling it was useless. The Anassos had a firm grip on Xander, but it was loosening its control over her. She let the mental fight go, let the Anassos think it had won, and it laughed and laughed until she dove for Xander. The Anassos made Xander plunge the knife down, but it was too late. Matt was there already, sliding between her love and his hand. Hot fire lanced down her back, and any control she'd had against the Anassos was gone, lost the moment she opened her mind.
***
Xander dropped the knife, his fingers slick with Matt's blood. “No, Matt, no,” he moaned, grabbing her under the arms as she collapsed. He cradled her all the way to the floor. Everything in his mind h
ad gone haywire, as though he were a passenger in an out-of-control car.
“Run,” she whispered in his ear, her fingers slowly dancing towards the knife.
“No. No,” Xander repeated, brushing the hair out of her eyes, knowing the Anassos would be coming soon, wondering if he'd feel the blade before it plunged into him. At least they'd go together. That was okay.
“It's... going to make me kill... you,” she said, her voice cracked and raw. “Doesn't want to kill me. Wants to break me.”
“Then let it be you,” Xander said, and kissed Matt gently as her eyes rolled up. She hiccupped out air, her back convulsing as she tried to fight. The knife pressed against his side, her small fingers clutched tight around its hilt. “It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I know you and your heart. That thing doesn't. I do.”
Her eyes stopped fluttering and she went still. Xander thought that was it, that the blade would slide into something soft, and there would be pain, but pain ended. He tried to smile for her as Matt sucked in a breath.
“Move!” she shouted, and she was shoving him backwards, sending him sprawling. In a flash, she was on her feet, knife still in hand, and she hurtled it, not with her mind, but with pure, simple human strength. Had the blade missed its target, turned a hair too slow, too fast, it would have clattered harmlessly off the Anassos's carapace. But it didn't. Luck and skill alike made sure that blade found a new home right in the creature's hip. It shouted, more out of shock than real pain, and Matt was there, yanking the blade out and jamming it back in, over and over and over again. The Anassos clawed at her face, but momentum and speed were on Matt's side and the woman called Adamanta on over a dozen worlds killed the mad Beltine, stopping only when Xander Finlay grabbed her from behind, kissing her neck as she shouted her fear and her fury wordlessly into the ruins of the station.
