The suit has covered his hands as well, and he raises them both up, pointing them toward the gate.
“Infiltration teams, get ready!” he shouts, his hands pointed toward the gate.
The gate is about two kilometers away, and I’m still incredibly skeptical that the suit is going to—
His hands glow purple. The glow intensifies, and even through my tinted mask I can barely look at his hands. I raise my hands to shield my eyes, but his hands begin to fade back to teal.
Nothing happens. It didn’t work? Our whole plan relied on this working, and if it doesn’t happen, we’ll be sitting outside this gate with a bunch of buggies and guns and no way in. We’ll—
All at once, a purple beam blasts out of his hands. It swells as it shoots through the air toward the gate. Within seconds, the beam slams into the gate, and that’s when I realize it’s not a beam of light, but plasma, or something resembling plasma. The purple material sloshes against the gate for a moment, and the beam expands. The gate crashes down, and the purple beam floods through the tunnel.
Cygnus keeps his hands held high as the beam completely fills the tunnel.
Buggies are racing down just off the road, steering clear of the beam, but moving in toward the lip of the crater.
As the beam begins to fade away, I make a reckless decision, one that will make Cygnus very angry.
22 Cygnus
When the hunger begins to gnaw at me, I scale back the flow of plasma. I need to leave something for the suit—and for myself—after I’m in the city.
The beam dies off, and I lower my hands. I see a clear hole through the tunnel and light at the end. Anyone who was in the tunnel would have died instantly. They’d have manned the tunnel with pirates rather than civilians, so I feel no guilt. With the beam gone, the buggies swerve immediately onto the road. Dozens of dust clouds merge together to form one red mass, which blocks my view of the tunnel.
I jump onto my own buggy and look around to find Aura, but there’s too many people running around and red dust everywhere. I saw my followers pulling her back to a safe distance, and I trust them now to keep her safe outside the city while we attack.
Jin jumps onto the buggy with me, and two of our best fighters load up onto the backseat. Jin drives the buggy down the road, and I have the bio-suit form a helmet to shield me from the dust.
I switch my vision to an infrared/UV composite, so I’m able to see through the dust cloud into the tunnel.
I zoom in as we approach and see gunfire flashing out from the end of the tunnel. Something explodes, and one of our buggies flips over. The pirates are fighting back, but with each second that passes, another buggy clears the tunnel and races into the city proper.
A minute or two later our own buggy passes the melted remnants of the gate. The tunnel is less dusty, so I switch back to normal vision and drop my helmet. There are some bloodied bodies lining the tunnel. I recognize the faces, and I make a note to mourn their loss after the battle has ended.
We clear the tunnel, and I see chaos everywhere throughout the city.
There are muzzle flashes lighting up along the upper stories of high rises, and our own fighters are pinned down against smaller buildings, taking potshots. Buggies are racing down the street, and gunners are letting loose with gunfire and rockets toward high-rises.
There are civilians screaming and running to get out of the way of the fighting, and buggies are flipped and burning everywhere.
I see one such civilian, she falls as she runs, and then I see a small child crying next to a pile of rubble.
I tap Jin on the shoulder and point, and Jin swerves our buggy toward them.
As we approach, I see a man with a rifle in ragged clothes pop out from the corner of a building and take aim at the woman.
I jump out of the buggy while it’s still in motion, and roll across the ground. I stand to my full height in front of the woman, just as the man fires.
I feel the bullets slam against my chest, but the bio-suit diffuses the impact of the first handful. One penetrates through, however, and I feel its sharp bite as it shatters one of my ribs.
Ignoring the pain, I raise my hand and blast a concentrated beam. The man has ducked back around the corner, so I just drag the beam into the corner. It melts off the edge of the building, and I see the beam cut into the shooter’s stomach. I drop the beam and see a hole cut clean through him as he crumbles to the ground.
Jin is moving toward me, and I quickly pick up the woman and inspect her for injuries.
“I didn’t get hit,” she cries. “But my daughter!” She points back toward the crying child, and suddenly I feel as if my heart has stopped beating. I see something that fills me with terror and rage.
Aura.
She’s running toward the pile of rubble and the child. I race toward her at full speed, raising my hands and scanning all angles. Aura is running completely exposed and with no cover, and there are dozens of buildings and hundreds of windows with an open shot on her.
I see a gun appear in one such window, steadied by a hand poised on the windowsill. Before I even see a face, I flood the window with plasma.
Aura picks up the child and cradles her. Seconds later I’m on her.
I scoop her and the child both up into my arms, turn around, and run back toward Jin and the buggy.
Jin has ducked down and taken cover behind a building just outside the tunnel.
I place Aura and the child down with Jin and the child’s mother.
“Aura,” I say. “Foolish human female! How did you—”
“I stuffed myself in the buggy’s cargo hold,” she says. “At least this time I was in there by choice.”
“Jin,” I say, ignoring her. “Take her back outside; see that she does nothing foolish again.”
Jin nods. “Sorry, Aura, Let’s get you—”
There’s an explosion behind us, and I feel the heat from it warm my face. I pull Aura in front of me and shield her. Moments later chunks of rubble slam into my back.
Jin has fallen down with the woman and child, and we manage to keep all of them safe.
I turn to face the source of the explosion, and see that the tunnel has collapsed.
My stomach groans, but I point my hands at the rubble and fire plasma.
The beam that comes out is barely wider than a flagpole. Though it melts only small holes in the rubble, more and more rubble falls down and covers the holes.
“Guess you need to eat more,” Jin says. “We’re all stuck in here.”
I look at Aura, and she’s smiling.
“Insufferable woman!” I roar. “Risking the future for your own ego!”
“Ego?” Aura says, eyes widening. “Great Brother Cygnus is calling me out on my ego? You purple bastard, I’ll —”
I grab her, pull up her facemask, and kiss her. It’s a brief kiss, but I try to channel all of my love for her into it. When I pull away and look at her face, I know I’ve succeeded.
23 Aura
Jin meets back with us. “I got the mom and kid into a building that seems safe. No pirates there, only some of our people. If we find more civilians out and about, we can bring them back there.”
“Good,” Aura says. “Now follow me.”
I lead us to Old Shuang’s. It’s a shop that gives me fair prices for scrap, and Old Shuang is the Rust Bucket civilian I trust most. The pirates have pulled back and holed up in the tallest buildings near the center of the city. They’ve taken a lot of hostages with them, and the tunnel was blown out before all of our people and raiders got through.
It’s a deadlock now, and we worry that trying to force our way into the buildings would mean more dead hostages — not to mention how many people we’d lose attacking an entrenched position.
Cygnus has taken a regular rifle, and he tells me his bio-suit is all but done. It will take a lot more sticks of jerky and servings of bacon and eggs to power it back up again.
We make slow progress, and Cygnus is
hyper-protective of me. We can’t move away from one piece of cover until he’s 100% sure it’s clear, and then he shields me with his big, teal-armored body while we run from cover point to cover point.
When we finally reach Old Shuang’s, the door is locked. Cygnus kicks the door in, and he and Jin secure the first few rooms while I wait.
“Old Shuang!” I shout out. “Are you here?”
“Aura!” he shouts, “Get out of here, it’s—”
HIs voice cuts out.
Cygnus and Jin move toward the location of his voice. We’re surrounded by shelves of equipment, though judging by the appearance of the room, a lot of it has been looted.
Old Shuang had called out from the back room, so the three of us head in that direction.
“Wait here,” Cygnus says. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.”
Jin nods, and the two of them disappear into the storeroom.
I wait nervously outside. I comb the room for useful weapons or equipment, but it’s mostly just junk. Anything useful has been looted.
A quick burst of gunfire erupts from the back room, and I start to run toward it. I worry Cygnus has been ambushed.
Something hard grabs my waist, and I’m lifted off the floor in mid-stride.
“I knew setting up in a shithole like this would get the scrap queen to come to me.”
It’s Scorpio’s voice.
I squirm in his arms, and I try to hit him in the balls with my foot, but I have no leverage. He drags me toward the door.
Cygnus roars out from the backroom, and he raises the gun toward us.
Scorpio pulls me up in front of him and crouches low behind me.
“You really wanna’ risk that, Ziggy?” Scorpio says, laughing.
Jin points his gun as well, but he’s shaking and covered in blood.
Scorpio used Old Shuang as a decoy, and I was dumb enough to fall for it. It’s bad enough I got myself captured, but I got a good man killed as well. Maybe Cygnus really would have been better off without me?
“So you want to turn into a bear?” Cygnus asks. “And then you’ll let her go?”
Four more pirates flood inside the room. They raise their guns, and now Cygnus and Jin are completely outgunned.
“I wanted to turn into a bear, yeah,” Scorpio says. “But that was before I saw you shoot that purple shite out of your hands. Now I want that suit.”
24 Cygnus
I call the suit away. It fades to black and shimmers, and it quickly peels itself off my body. It tries to roll into a sphere, but the suit clings to my bullet wound. It’s dug itself deep into me to disinfect the wound and pull out the bullet, and since it’s in the middle of its work, it refuses to finish pulling away completely.
“Come on!” Scorpio yells, pressing his gun up against Aura’s chin.
I will kill this man. Not only does my shame debt require it, but justice demands it.
I grab the suit with both hands, just centimeters from the wound. I tear at it, and it rips out. The bullet pops out of the wound. Covered in teal blood, it drops to the floor and trails drops of blood behind it as it rolls. More blood begins to ooze out of the gaping wound. I cover it with my hand to stem the bleeding.
The suit rolls up into a tight sphere, and I throw it underhand across the floor.
It rolls toward Scorpio, and the moment I see his eyes glance down at it, I shift to bear form and lunge at him.
The suit swarms around Scorpio as I’m mid-lunge, and it hardens itself against my claws.
I feel my claws break as I hit the suit with full force, and then gunfire breaks out.
Aura is down on the ground, crawling toward the open door. The shooters are unloading onto the counter, and Jin has dived behind it.
Scorpio was shielded from my swipe, but the force of impact sends him rolling back into the wall.
While the shooters unload on Jin, I raise both claws and swipe, killing two of them instantly.
With their blood still hot and wet under my broken claws, the other two drop their guns and try to escape.
I jump on top of one of the pirates and maul him. Jin pops up and shoots the other one between the eyes, killing him instantly.
Scorpio—still fully bio-suited—is crawling away from me, toward Jin.
Jin unloads his gun into Scorpio, but the suit absorbs the few remaining bullets in his magazine.
Aura comes back inside and throws a gun down beside me.
I shift back to Marauder form and grab the weapon.
Scorpio fires a plasma beam into the counter, and Jin rolls away as the counter melts apart.
I begin to empty the gun into Scorpio’s back, and the bullets knock him flat on his face. I know that each bullet the suit absorbs will use up some of Scorpio’s energy, and the suit will grow hungrier.
Scorpio cackles wildly, then throws a hot beam right at me.
The gun melts in my hands, and I barely have time to dodge it and grab Aura.
Scorpio moves toward me with both hands raised, and Jin charges him with the butt of his rifle.
He slams the back of the gun into Scorpio’s head, but the suit hardens. The attack does nothing.
Scorpio grabs Jin and flings him into the air. The suit gives Scorpio enough strength that Jin flies into the wall so hard that it cracks and crumbles. He hits the ground, but doesn’t get back up.
Scorpio turns back toward me and laughs. “Just you and me now. I reckon we have a fair fight now that I’ve got this—”
I jump into him, shifting back into bear form in mid-air.
The mass of my bear form is enough to throw Scorpio to the ground, but when I see his open palm point at me, I shift back to Marauder form to turn myself a smaller target. When I dodge, I see Aura fall to the ground.
“Get out!” I shout to her. “Please!”
“I’m not gonna’ hurt her,” Scorpio says. He smiles a wicked grin. “I’m just gonna’ kill her.”
He points his hand at her, and I dive in front.
The plasma burns as it hits me. I feel my skin melt away, but just before it obliterates my inner organs, Scorpio’s eyes bulge, and he falls backward.
The beam cuts up my shoulder, and it hits the roof, tearing through it. The beam cuts off, and Scorpio falls flat on his back.
“Fuck,” Scorpio says. “I’m fucking starving!”
My chest and shoulder are both a burned and bloody mess, but the beam shot at least cauterized the bullet wound. I can barely move through the pain, but I see Aura safe behind me. Scorpio is flailing on the ground grunting and wailing.
He points his hand at me as I approach, but nothing happens.
Aura comes up behind me and clutches my arm. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He wanted the bio-suit,” I say. “And he got it. But human metabolism isn’t efficient enough, so it’s eating him alive.”
Scorpio clutches at his stomach, and he looks up at me with his one bloodshot eye. Tears are streaming down his face, and snot is filling his beard. “You fucking…b….”
His voice falls to a moan, and he writhes on the ground for a few more moments before falling still.
Aura runs behind the counter to check on Jin. “He’s alive.”
I nod. Jin is strong, and so is Aura. My human female. The mother of my future child. I see her. And now I will win this battle, and every battle to come.
Epilogue
Cygnus and I watch our daughter Sara play on the farm. She’s only two years old, but being half-Marauder and half-human—Seraph—means she can clear a whole stock of corn in Martian gravity.
Our farms are domed and outside now rather than underground. The orbitals have not accepted us yet, but they are not openly hostile.
Sara laughs and giggles, her voice unobstructed by a facemask. Another gift from her father’s genes.
Her ears are more elf-like than bear-like—a mix between human and Marauder.
Her skin is more a pale violet than purple, and in the pale Martia
n sunlight, her skin sometimes looks almost human.
“Sara,” I shout, “Come back, you’re getting too far away.”
She giggles louder, and jumps further away.
“She’s as stubborn as her father,” Cygnus says.
Great Brother Cygnus. Much to my dismay, the name has stuck.
But I’m Aura, the Great Mother. That name has stuck as well, and together Cygnus and I rule most of the cities along the south pole. Hundreds join our cause every day, but the equator and everything North of it is hostile to our cause.
“Have you heard from Aegus?” I ask. “Seriously, Sara, get back here!”
“No,” Cygnus says. “We have to trust he’s made it. I’ll go get her.”
Trust. I’d received one short message from my sister. At least I know she’s still alive, but I have to trust her to take care of herself.
Cygnus leaps off the hill and rushes down toward the rows of corn. He’s much faster than his daughter, and after a minute or so he’s snatched her out of the air. He slings her over his shoulder, and she pounds on his broad shoulders as he carries her back toward me.
Just as he begins to climb the hill again, he stops suddenly. He hushes Sara and looks off in the distance. My eyesight isn’t as good as Cygnus’s, but I think I see a figure disappear behind a far-off hill.
“Was that Uncle Aegus?” Sara asks as Cygnus climbs the hill.
“It might have been,” Cygnus says. “But let’s get you both inside now.”
Cygnus nods to me and smiles. He puts his hand on the small of my back, and we climb the hill back toward our home.
“I see you, Cygnus,” I whisper.
Sara pouts at me and clicks her ears.
“And you too, sweetie.”
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