Test Subjects

by R S Penney

Kellin looked crestfallen, his shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast. “If you say so, ma'am,” he mumbled. “But try to be careful.”

  “Always.”

  The call ended.

  Now, all she could do was wait. Hatheran was still grunting and hissing in pain, and his breathing was getting shallow. Bleakness take her! Why wasn't Cassi in position? Did the team need Anna's help?

  As if in answer to her question, she heard grunts and cries from the men up on the catwalk. Suddenly, the hangar bay was a flurry of activity. When she peeked through the door, she saw the ziarogat standing with its neck craned, watching the commotion. “Now would be a good time!” Cassi's voice echoed in the massive hangar bay.

  “Cover me!” Anna said.

  She charged through the door.

  The ziarogat rounded on her, silver eyes shimmering when they fell upon her. It thrust a closed fist toward her to aim that wrist-mounted weapon. Anna fell to her knees, sliding across the tiles.

  In her mind, she saw Jack's silhouette lifting an assault rifle. Bullets whistled over her head, pounding the ziarogat. The creature backed up with a forearm raised to shield its face. A flickering wall of static appeared.

  Just a few more feet.

  When she slid to a stop, Anna got up. The force-field sped toward her. She leaped and somersaulted over it, uncurling to plant both feet against the ziarogat's chest. This forced the creature down onto its back.

  Anna jumped off.

  When she landed, she turned to face her enemy and took two steps backward. Her heart was pounding. The tingling in her skin was still there, a constant reminder that she would have to use her power sparingly.

  Curling up its legs, the ziarogat sprang off the floor to land with its back turned. In mere heartbeats, it was whirling around to glare at her with those metallic eyes and lifting its right hand for a quick, clean shot.

  Anna kicked its wrist before it could aim, knocking the weapon aside. She spun and back-kicked, pounding the cyborg's nose with the sole of her shoe, forcing the ziarogat to retreat as silver blood spilled over its lips.

  Anna came around to face her enemy, drew her pistol with lightning-fast reflexes and fired. The ziarogat already had its left hand raised defensively. White static appeared to intercept Anna's bullets.

  The force-field came rushing toward her.

  Anna leaped to her right, moving deeper into the hangar bay, toward the space door. From the corner of her eye, she saw the force-field hit Jack's shuttle and splash against its surface.

  “That's right,” Anna said, backing away. “Follow me.”

  The ziarogat did nothing of the sort.

  It leaped with inhuman strength, launching itself into the air with enough height to easily land on one of the catwalks. Instead, it passed over Anna's head and landed deeper in the hangar bay.

  She spun around to find the ziarogat rounding on her with its arm already extended, spitting bullets before it even had a shot lined up.

  Instinct saved her; just before the creature's fist was in line with her, she threw up a Time Bubble and watched as her adversary became a blurry, frozen image. She saw that a bullet was already inching its way toward her.

  Her skin began to burn.

  Lifting her pistol in both hands, Anna narrowed her eyes and fired. Her own bullet appeared just beyond the confines of her bubble. Gasping, she dropped to a crouch and released her hold on the fabric of space-time.

  A bullet whizzed over her.

  The ziarogat staggered when the round she had loosed grazed the side of its head, silver blood leaking over its cheek. That should have been a perfect head-shot; somehow, the damn cyborg was able to track her even when she should have been a blur to its eyes and move just enough to avoid dying. Modified as it was, that was still a human body; there were limits to how quickly it could react.

  Anna ran toward her foe.

  The ziarogat thrust out its arm.

  She dove, somersaulting across the tiles as bullets flew past above her, then came up on one knee. Reacting by instinct, Anna raised her weapon and fired three rounds into her enemy's stomach.

  The cyborg looked down at itself.

  When it tried to lift its arm, Anna fell backward with her pistol held in both hands. She lined up a shot and screamed, “EMP!” before firing.

  A glowing white tracer pierced the ziarogat's forearm, shredding tendons, and then burst out the other side. That wrist-mounted cannon exploded with a hissing crackle, thin trails of smoke rising from its ruined circuitry.

  “Let's see how well you fight now.”

  When he saw Anna leading the ziarogat deeper into the hangar bay, Jack turned to Arin. The other man was still on his knees with tears streaming over his cheeks, shaking his head. “I'm sorry…”

  A quick peek through the door gave Jack a sense of the situation. Anna was fighting with the ziarogat off to his left. There was gunfire up on the catwalk as well, but so far as Jack could tell, the Ragnosians were shooting at people who had ambushed them through the door up there.

  He was never gonna get a better chance.

  Jack rounded on the other man and dropped to a crouch. “Arin,” he said, taking his new friend by the shoulders. “Arin, listen to me. We have to go now. I'll get you through the SlipGate, and you won't have to worry about the ziarogat.”

  Arin looked up with cheeks that glistened with freshly-spilled tears, blinking as he let that sink in. “Through the SlipGate…” For the first time since this all started, the man seemed to have found lucidity.

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn't matter; Slade will find me.”

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Jack shook his head. “Arin, we do not have time for this,” he said, standing up. “What was it you told me a little while ago? Anything is better than staying here?”

  Arin whimpered.

  “Get up!”

  As if spurred by the heat in Jack's voice, the other man stood and shuddered as he calmed himself. “Yes…You're right,” he said. “We should leave.”

  “Well, come on then.”

  Jack was through the door without waiting to see if his companion would follow. A brief glimpse of Anna sparring with the ziarogat drove a spike of fear through his heart. It was hard to resist the urge to run and join her, but she had given him an order, and if there was anyone in this universe he trusted, it was Anna Delnara Lenai.

  He had a clear path to the shuttle with no sign of any trouble. Jack started running. In the back of his mind, he sensed it when Arin came through the door behind him. Just a quick sprint. Fifteen seconds across the width of the hangar bay.

  The shuttle was so close he could almost touch it. The open airlock, though dark and ominous, beckoned him forward with the promise of safety. He just had to get to the SlipGate. Dear God, please let there be somebody waiting to call the Endeavour and tell them to open their Gate. Jack didn't have a multi-tool.

  He paused when he sensed that Arin had stopped.

  Jack turned around just in time to see Arin standing there with his fist drawn back, then five knuckles collided with his nose and fuzzed his vision. The sudden shock of it made him back up until he was pressed against the side of the shuttle. A very blurry Arin stepped forward and turned for a vicious side-kick.

  Jack stepped aside, and Arin's foot hit the shuttle with a clang. With a growl, Jack brought his fist down on the other man's extended leg, producing a yelp of pain.

  He spun to face Arin with his fists up, shaking his head as he backed up toward the shuttle's wing. “I thought we agreed not to do this,” Jack said. “You don't have to go back to your old life. I wasn't lying when I said I'd help you.”

  Arin came at him with a high roundhouse kick.

  Ducking low, Jack felt the other man's foot pass over him and strike the shuttle instead. That produced another squeak, and Jack backed up.

  Arin hobbled forward.

  Jack punched him in the face with one fist then the other, driving him backward with blood leaking
from his mouth. Seizing his enemy by the shirt, Jack pulled him close with a short, sharp tug.

  He shut his eyes and delivered a ferocious headbutt to the face, one that stunned the other man. A disoriented Arin bought his hands up to fling Jack's arms apart and pull free of his grip.

  The man jumped, flipping through the air and then straightening to land on top of the shuttle's wing. He whirled around with a smile on his face.

  Jack turned as well.

  Arin leaped, flying toward him with his arms spread wide, then snap-kicked. At the last second, Jack crossed his forearms in front of his face, intercepting the man's foot with the x formed by his wrists.

  The impact knocked him onto his ass and sent him sliding across the docking bay floor. He curled up into a ball, somersaulted backwards and came up in a squat.

  When he looked, Arin was right in front of him.

  The other man kicked Jack across the face, darkening his vision once again and throwing him down onto his back. He was barely cognizant of spacial awareness painting the image of Arin pacing a circle around him. The man lifted his foot and tried to stomp it down on Jack's face.

  Jack's hands snapped up, grabbing the other man's shoe, holding it suspended just inches above his nose. The pressure was hard to resist. He felt like a rat that was about to be squashed by a garage door.

  Arin had teeth bared, his face flushed, his dark hair drenched with sweat. “I would have liked to have gone with you, Hunter,” he said. “For a moment I almost believed that I could be a Justice Keeper…But that was never anything more than a naive fantasy. After I kill you, Slade will take me back.”

  Scrunching up his face, Jack felt a tear leak from the corner of his eye. “You really should have thought this through,” he groaned. “Remember who you're fighting, asshole. You are not in a superior position.”

  With a single thought, Jack reversed gravity around the other man's body. Arin shot upward like a bullet loosed from a gun, limbs flailing as Bent Gravity pulled him toward the ceiling.

  Arin used his own symbiont to pull him back down to the ground. He landed with arms spread like a crane's wings, a wicked smile on his face. “I must credit you, Hunter,” he said. “You were a worthy adversary.”

  Jack got to his feet. “Then bring it.”

  This well-lit hallway ended in a huge door that led to the hangar' bay's second-level catwalk. And it was filled with men in gray uniforms who just kept shooting at her team. Cassi and the others had drawn them away from the hangar bay, giving Jack and Anna a chance to deal with the ziarogat.

  She took cover at the corner of an intersecting corridor, breathing hard, trying with all her might to stay focused. Her skin burned from the repeated use of her abilities. How much longer could she hold out.

  The instant her team retreated, the Ragnosians would turn around and start firing on Jack and Anna. She had to last just a little longer.

  Anna had her fists up as she and the ziarogat circled each other. In her mind's eye, she saw Jack fighting Arin. Bleakness take her, she knew that bastard couldn't be trusted. Every instinct told her to run to her boyfriend and help him. But she couldn't. She had to put down the ziarogat first.

  The cyborg watched her with those dead eyes. Its right arm hung limp, silver blood leaking from the hole in its wrist, coating the back of its hand. If it was in pain, it showed no sign of it. “Come on then,” Anna said.

  The ziarogat stopped with its back to the space door.

  It raised its left hand, nanobots emerging from a slot on its gauntlet and linking together to form a long, thin blade. Razor-sharp and deadly, its edge reflected the yellow glow of the emergency lights.

  Anna backed away from the cybernetic monstrosity with her mouth agape, shaking her head. “Oh come on!” she said. “That's not fair!”

  Without so much as a particle of hesitation, the ziarogat marched forward. It was executing a program, that and nothing more. There was no cognition behind those silver eyes. Nothing but the rudimentary assessment of the best way to kill its target.

  Anna leaped, flipping over the cyborg's head and then turning upright to land just behind it. She fell forward, slammed her hands down on the floor and kicked out behind herself to strike her opponent as it turned.

  The ziarogat stumbled.

  Rounding on it, Anna drew her pistol and stood with her arm extended, the barrel of her gun pointed at her enemy's chest. But Jack and Arin were fighting behind the cyborg. Her bullets would rip through flesh.

  The cyborg rushed her, drawing back its arm for a stab.

  Once again, Anna jumped, turning belly-up in midair. Her feet came up to clip the ziarogat's chin, and then she flipped over to land a few paces away. A hit like that should have put down a normal human.

  The ziarogat just kept striding forward without even a hint of emotion, its face an expressionless mask. Bleakness take her, what would it take to kill one of these things? Before today, she had faced two, and each time, she had a telepath to help her. No such luck today. Anna holstered her pistol.

  Backing up toward the massive space door, she assumed a fighting stance and gave the creature a death glare. “Well, hurry up then,” she said. “I'd throw out a witty rejoinder to motivate you, but frankly, I don't like wasting my well-crafted puns.”

  The ziarogat drew back its arm.

  It tried to stab her.

  Twisting out of its path, Anna grabbed the creature's extended arm with both hands. A swift kick to the back of the knee knocked her adversary down onto its back, and then she delivered a hit to the short ribs.

  The cyborg rolled away, flopping onto its belly and then pushing itself up with both arms. It turned its head to look at her. No fury, no frustration. Just a bland dull-eyed stare. Because, you know, these things weren't creepy enough already.

  It got up and charged toward her.

  Anna braced herself.

  But the gat surprised her by raising its arm as if it was trying to shield its face and summoning a force-field that flickered into place. In a heartbeat, that wall of energy was barreling toward her.

  Anna jumped, curling her knees as she felt the force-field pass by beneath her. She landed to find the ziarogat right in front of her and slashing at her neck with its makeshift sword.

  By instinct, she put up another Time Bubble, and this time the pain in her skin was excruciating. Her temples throbbed. Dizziness hit her like a wave. The bubble was barely large enough to contain her own body, extending outward behind her.

  Anna bent backwards until she was almost folded in half and let the bubble vanish. The blade passed over her, air whistling, and for one very brief moment, her enemy was overextended.

  She snapped herself upright.

  Anna sent a pair of jabs into the cyborg's chest, driving it backward. With a scream, she jumped and slugged it right in the nose. Keep the damn thing on the defensive. Even with all those enhancements, that was still a human body. Deal out enough punishment, and it wouldn't be able to attack.

  Anna jumped, spinning as she rose, one foot lashing out for a brutal hook-kick that connected with her opponent's cheek. That hit landed hard enough to break bone, and the ziarogat stumbled drunkenly.

  Jack was no longer behind the cyborg.

  Whirling around in a blur, Anna drew her gun and lifted the weapon in both hands. She needed less than a second to take aim.

  Anna fired.

  A small hole appeared in the ziarogat's forehead, chunks of silver gore flying out to spatter against the wall behind it. The cyborg fell to its knees, then flopped down onto the floor. She didn't want to look at the back of its skull.

  Jack.

  Jack needed her.

  Anna wanted to run to him, but the instant she tried, her legs gave out. Adrenaline had carried her through that last fight, but now that the immediate danger had passed, she was exhausted.

  Oh no…

  Arin threw a quick right hook.

  Jack brought his forearm up beside his head, bloc
king the hit. He used the other hand for an upper-cut to the belly. And then another. Powerful hits that lifted Arin off the floor. Jack drew back his arm.

  He offered a hard punch of his own.

  The other man leaned back, one hand shooting up to seize Jack's wrist. He lifted Jack's hand above his head and did a little twirl under it, spinning out of sight. The next thing Jack knew, he was being forced to bend double. Arin's knee came up to smash his nose.

  With his vision clouded, Jack felt two hands grab the back of his shirt and turn him around. He was being hurled toward the shuttle. Spatial awareness let him sense the small craft even though his eyes were no good.

  Jack felt his feet hit the metal surface. He pushed off with a growl and back-flipped over his opponent. When he landed, Arin was already facing him.

  The man spun for a hook-kick, his foot whirling around in a tight circle, connecting with Jack's chin and dulling his wits. Everything went hazy, and he wasn't even aware of having fallen until he felt cool tile beneath him.

  A hand grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him up. Then he was standing up but not of his own power. His legs wanted to buckle and give way. Arin was behind him, keeping him upright.

  Jack felt the man's breath on his neck.

  One of Arin's rough hands clamped onto Jack's cheek; the other took a spot on the opposite side of Jack's head. He's going to snap my neck!

  Jack threw himself backward, surprising the other man, forcing Arin to release him. They both toppled to the floor with Arin landing on his backside and wheezing as he was crushed under Jack's weight. Quickly, Jack rolled off him and tried to crawl away.

  He was worming across the floor tiles, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. All those blows to the face had left him disoriented. Keepers healed fast, but his body still felt sluggish.

  Arin came up behind him.

  The man dropped to a crouch at Jack's side, seized a fistful of Jack's hair and pulled his head back. “They told me what you tried to do to Leo,” he spat. “But your sweet, little Summer wouldn't allow it. Too bad for you that I am not hindered by such restrictions.”

  Direct physical contact allowed Jack to sense a surge of power coursing through the other man's body. The sudden spike of neuroelectric energy that came before a symbiont crafted a Bending. Arin was going to try to rip his body apart.