Driven to Inertia

by T C

  ***

  It was now or never. While he was distracted by Kaydia. Linora could catch him off guard. If she waited, Kaydia would recover and then she would be outnumbered. So she signaled her people. 12 elite sabermen and women, the best the Digital Sun could call upon.

  It’s wasn’t hard to get the proprietor of the glass palace on board. After all, that massive bounty on Quentin’s head was active, and no honest businessman wanted to be charged with harboring a fugitive. Offering twenty percent of the bounty upfront didn’t hurt either. So she had a key to their room.

  “Don’t hurt Scarlet,” she instructed her people as she readied herself for the attack. “And try to get Quentin alive.” With that she clicked open the door and flicked on her plasma blade. Digital Sun flooded the room, taking up formation before Linora. Brown eyes bored into Quentin’s blue ones, before glancing over to the sweating, shivering Kaydia.

  “No one has to get hurt, Quentin. Surrender peacefully, for her sake.”

  ***

  His perceptions still within psionics, Quentin looked at Linora and her saber fighters with eyes that seemed to see into their very souls. He could see the darkness in them, testament to a lifetime of deeds that nearly choked the light within them. Watch the waves of aggression and fear that roiled off him, directed at himself and Kaydia and Linora. "For her sake?" he repeated, voice slightly distant.

  He reached out in psionics, calling on a technique that he'd learned in an ancient tome penned by Master Matthiau Har'Kovash, known to history as "the Heretic". Lines of aggression and hatred began to redirect under his will. "For her sake, or for yours?"

  ***

  Linora eyed Quentin carefully. Not because he was naked, but because even naked he was still dangerous. And she didn't like the strange confidence in his eyes, or the way psionics flowed through and around him to touch her soldiers. What was he...?

  Then she noticed her soldiers shifting, felt the tension build in the room as they began to eye one another warily. "Shit!" she snapped. "Get him!"

  ***

  There were too many of them. Kaydia knew she had to help Quentin. She had to do something. But she was weak. Pathetic. All she could do was lie in bed, trying not to puke her guts up. Trying not to scream from the resonate hatred and fury that coursed through the room, powering the attacks of both Quentin and Linora, as they fought over her. Why, why her? Why did they care so much for a useless junkie? Why would they risk themselves over her?

  ***

  The room erupted into chaos at Linora's command. Three plasma-wielding soldiers moved forward, then one screamed as a fourth slashed him in half with a plasma blade. The normally disciplined Digital Sun killers –handpicked and trained by Linora– turned on one another in a chaotic whirling melee, some seeking to kill their newly realized enemies, others trying to defend themselves from friends and comrades.

  Two of the soldiers –more disciplined or luckier than the others– made it to Quentin. His plasma blade ignited in midair, and he parried their attacks with an economy of motion that contrasted with their whirling, athletic style. He drew one humming blade out of line and thrust, impaling an opponent on the shimmering white blade of his weapon before slashing it out of his chest to parry the other blade once more.

  ***

  Linora could feel a tension headache coming on. Quentin was one man, dammit. A Justiciar yes, but still! How could he possibly wreak this much havoc? Somehow he'd turned her psionics against itself, and now half the little elite force she'd put together was dead or critically wounded.

  She massaged her brow with her living hand, idly noting the thrumming purr of her plasma blade through the steel one he'd given her. Clearly, he'd learned a few new tricks since they'd last met. Well, so had she. The headache rose, pounding in her temples, and her brown eyes became livid crimson shot with orange fire. "Enough!"

  ***

  Linora's roar of frustration and fury exploded outwards, carrying dark energies with it. Her men were scattered like bowling pins, slammed into walls and ceiling by strength of her hate. Quentin felt the surge with barely enough time to brace himself, leaning into it as if it were gale-force winds. Currents of rage and fury lashed at him, drawing blood from dozens of tiny wounds as capillaries burst beneath his skin.

  He started to move, but something picked him up and slammed him hard into the cool glass wall. He concentrated, pushing back against the pressure, plasma blade dropping unheeded as all his attention poured into resisting the crushing power that held him pinned. "You... can't... win..." he gritted out, his words laced with an attack on her confidence and self-esteem. "I'm..."

  Pain exploded in his skull as Linora struck back. "You?" she snarled. "You can't protect her, and you think you're stronger than me?"

  Her rage battered him. Rage and... jealousy? That surprised him, but an analytical part of his mind realized that those emotions were making the more subtle techniques less effective. And so he hit her with one of her own men, sending a one hundred kilo thug slamming into her. He dropped to the ground, gasping for breath, then caught up his plasma blade. "Come on, Linora," he invited, rising to his feet, "let's see what..."

  His words were cut off by the impact of the same thug, slamming him back into the glass and bursting the air from his lungs. He gasped, then lost what little air he had when lightning tore into his body. He screamed silently, then screamed again as Linora roared and hurled more electricity into him. Finally, asphxyated and with muscles spasming uncontrollably as dark lightning ripped along his nerves, consciousness failed him.

  ***

  Linora stood, gasping and soaked with sweat from her exertions. Carefully she wiped blood from her face. The effort of channeling that much power took a physical toll, and blood dripped from tear ducts and nostrils as a testament to that fact. But that self-righteous little prick was down! She wiped her nose again, smearing blood on the sleeve of her coat. With Quentin’s mind quiet, all that remained was the nausea and ache that emanated from–

  KAYDIA!

  She leapt to the bed, gladdened to see that it was largely unharmed by her rage. Hands shaking, she gathered the shuddering figure beneath the blankets into her arms. "It's all right," she whispered. "I'm here. You're safe, now."

  ***

  “Quentin…” Kaydia couldn’t help him, no more than she could save herself from the pirates. He wasn’t dead, but his consciousness was far away. She had no strength to defy Linora, but perhaps she could still save him. Fingers dug into Linora’s arms, flesh and steel alike. “Please… don’t kill him. Please.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Linora murmured, stroking Kaydia’s hair, tugging free the knots from sleep and sex. “I know what you need,” she whispered, pulling a case from a pouch on her belt. Needle, rubber tourniquet and vial. “Just a little, to dull the pain. Tell me you want that.”

  Kaydia hated herself as she nodded, holding out her arm for Linora. “Yes,” she exhaled, breathing deep as her arm was tied off. Quentin was bound and taken from the room, and she knew she should try to help him, try to stop them. But she was weak, and tired, and in so much pain.

  Pathetic.

  Master Bri Ta faded as the needle sunk into her vein, and her senses dulled, to the point that lights and sounds no longer hurt. Nothing hurt after a moment.

  “Better?” Linora asked, running fingers through Kaydia’s hair. She could only nod, once more. “Okay, let’s get you dressed, and back to Miruta.”

  Lies

  On the top floor of the small mansion she maintained on Miruta, Linora Sunfell poured two glasses full of a purplish-black, sticky liquid. She wore a black silk robe over black silk pyjamas highlighted with fine silver threads, and her dark, wavy hair cascaded over her shoulders and back.

  Placing the two cups on a silver tray and lifting it with gloved hands, she paused and examined herself in a mirror. Her eyes were still a little shadowed, showing traces of bruising from the stress of her fight with Quentin. She smiled
a little at that, the expression nasty. He'd learn to regret that, once she finished with Kaydia...

  Her expression softened as she thought of the other woman. Carefully balancing the tray, she turned and crossed the room. Passing through a short hall lined with small crystalline sculptures, she gently rapped at a door. "Kaydia?" she called, her voice gentle. "Are you awake? I've brought you something."

  ***

  The knocking at the door brought Kaydia out of her planned. She put up her mental barriers with a deep breath, unsure what to expect. Linora couldn’t be sure where exactly Kaydia’s loyalties lied. Kaydia wasn’t even entirely sure where her loyalties lied. She still loved Quentin. And she still hungered for Inertia.

  “Come in.”

  And yet, seeing Linora like this, dressed in soft silk and relaxed, recalled the last night they spent together. When they licked honey off each other’s bodies and fell asleep in each other’s arms. When Linora promised her vengeance for the ones who had hurt her. When Kaydia agreed once more to become Scarlet.

  “How are you feeling?” Linora asked, as she put the tray down on the small table off the side of the bed. She offered one cup to Kaydia, and took a drink of her own.

  “Okay, I guess.” After watching Linora swallow her drink, Kaydia took a sip herself. She wasn’t sure what Linora knew about everything, but the protectiveness she had shown suggested she knew something. It made sense, after all, her captors had told her they would sell her to the Digital Sun. Linora would have been the person to contact, in that case.

  “I was a fool Kaydia. I should have never let you go. I haven’t stopped thinking of that night we spent together. I haven’t stopped thinking about you, and how you made me feel.” Linora confessed, caressing Kaydia’s cheek and looking into her eyes. “I was scared to share my heart again after Quentin…” She stopped, her voice cracking.

  “Quentin said you broke his heart. That you …betrayed him,” Kaydia claimed, slightly unsure of herself.

  “I’m sure he did. To get your sympathy, before getting you in bed,” Linora asserted. “He told me he loved me. Then he killed my master, and fled Cephoria with another woman. I wasn’t safe at the temple anymore. Only the Digital Sun could keep me safe.”

  “He what?” Kaydia questioned, pulling away from Linora now.

  “Here, I’ll pull it up, “ Linora said, picking up the data pad form the bedside table. A moment later a decade old news report confirmed what Linora had told her, and supported by what the pirates had said. Quentin Hall was a fugitive from the Order of the Unseen, with a massive bounty on his head. “It’s why he doesn’t use his real name anymore.”

  Kaydia sat down on the bed rereading the news report, hoping to find some sign that it was all a lie. “He loves me. I know it. I…felt it.”

  “I felt it too, Kaydia. It’s what he does. He makes you fall for him and then uses you, until you are no more value to him.”

  Linora held up a hand before Kaydia could speak, interrupting her reply. "Believe me, I know how real it feels. But he's a Justiciar. He still thinks of himself as one, even though he's on the run from the Order. He..." She shook her head. "He's delusional, I think."

  She sat at arm's reach, staring into her glass. "I loved him, too. Maybe I still do, because I should have killed him in self-defense. Because the last time I saw him, well..." Setting the glass down, she tugged the glove from her right hand. The gunmetal limb beneath was engraved and set with onyx and lapis lazuli, and whirred faintly as myomers flexed the artificial joints. The silver casing of her plasma blade had been woven into her prosthetic arm. "He gave me this."

  With a sigh, she sipped at her drink and stared at her hand. "He's more like me than he admits," she observed. "But at least I'm honest about being a criminal. He plays at being a Justiciar. Hell, he probably let you get captured, just so he could feel like he had a reason to kill those pirates."

  Kaydia pulled away from Linora. “What makes you say that?”

  “Think about it. In all the galaxy, pirates manage to find you and Quentin as you fled Miruta? And then he goes down fighting them, only to awaken in time to stop the rape? Not in time to stop them from drugging you? Making you feel helpless, as if you had to rely on his strength. Was that when he told you he loved you?”

  Everything Linora said sounded ridiculous, but Kaydia couldn’t easily dismiss the idea outright. It all did seem too neat. She’d been so desperate for someone to have her back, so happy to find a kindred spirit in Quentin, she’d let her guard down. Still… “Why would he do all that?”

  “To buy your loyalty away from me. So he could convince you to help him kill me.” Linora closed the distance between them again, but this time she sat behind Kaydia, and rubbed her shoulders.

  Quentin had said he was hunting Linora, and that he hadn’t wanted to ask her help in that before. But was Quentin really capable of such a thing? Her eyes went back down to the datapad in her hands, and the story of his decade old crimes.

  Linora lips grazed her ear as she whispered, hot breath leaving her body tingling. “I’m not going to make the same mistake twice, Kaydia. I am never going to let you go.”

  “I can’t stay on Miruta. The Digital Sun know I killed Tuzza.”

  "I’m a Vigo now, Kaydia. I can protect you.” Her breasts pressed into Kaydia’s back as she leaned closer, and her breath tickled Kaydia’s ear. “And I know you can protect yourself. You're Kaydia, but you're also Scarlet, and your name is feared. Don't let your suffering take that away."

  The metal hand flattened on her stomach, pressing gently. "Use it," she hissed, breath hot on Kaydia's ear. "Your pain, your hatred, even your fear. You can draw strength from it I know you can." She smiled, voice low and soft. "I've sensed your hatred of the men who enslaved you. I've seen your handiwork, what you did to them. They feared you before. Let them fear you again."

  Without moving away, she lifted her cup and drained it. "Justiciar fear their emotions," she murmured. "We don't have to. We're free, Kaydia. Free of their rigid code. Free to experience life. Free to experience our emotions. Joy. Hatred. Peace. Anger." Metal fingers gently stroked Kaydia's cheek, turning her head. Soft lips, still sticky and flavored with the drink, found hers. "Passion."

  “Teach me,” she moaned against Linora’s lips, feeling that raw power radiating from Linora. Once more their lips met, Linora drinking down her pain, and replacing it with power. Linora was a Vigo now, because of Scarlet, and the two of them could rule this sector if they wanted. No one would hurt them, or even stand up to them. No one, except…

  Kaydia broke off the kiss, difficult as it was to do so. As much as she just wanted to melt into Linora’s softness, and hear Linora’s cries of pleasure as Kaydia tasted her once more, he still weighed on her mind. She couldn’t relax, couldn’t give in, until she knew. “What are you going to do to Quentin?”

  “I want to make him understand, Kaydia. Make him understand us, and this life. Make him understand how foolish the Justiciar’s are, and how this way is so much better.”

  “And if he won’t?”

  “Then I am going to have to kill him.”

  Torment

  Suspended in his restraints, Quentin was sweating profusely. Not out of fear or discomfort, although the restraints certainly weren't comfortable, but because he had drawn on his psionics to accelerate his metabolism. All of the various drugs he was purging had to go somewhere, after all, and not everything could be exhaled.

  Linora clearly had a hand in designing this cell, because it was clearly designed to restrain a Justiciar. Suspension restraints that held him spread-eagled and which injected a chemical cocktail to muddy his thinking. Randomly strobing lights to keep him disoriented. Oh, and the occasional electric shock, just to convulse his muscles and keep things interesting. Very clever work.

  He figured he'd be out in another half hour. But then, he wasn't the typical Justiciar.

  Muscles still twitching from the latest shock, he concentrated his p
erceptions on the restraint engulfing his right hand and wrist. Matter was nothing but fields of interlocking forces, after all. Once you had the knack, it was as easy to look within an object as upon it. Slowly, he began to understand the structure of the restraint.

  Then he heard the door open. Waves of fear washed across his skin, followed by two familiar presences. One like dark flame, burning by freezing. The other seething rage, armoring a core of despair. With a sigh he opened his eyes, taking in the forms of Linora and Kaydia. Both were guarding their thoughts, but it was clear from their body language that this wasn't a rescue. He composed his thoughts, submerging his distress at seeing the woman he loved standing with the woman who he had loved.

  "I hope you'll forgive my poor manners," he said, forcing a wry smile. "I pride myself on my manners, but... well, I'm a little tied up right now."

  “I would have considered it rude if you weren’t tied up right now,” Linora remarked and made her way to a locked cabinet on the far side of the cell, opening it to find a plethora of drugs and other paraphernalia within. She selected a needle and a small milky vial that needed no label.

  Kaydia watched in silence ”What are you doing?”

  Linora turned to face her, placing the needle down on the table as Linora moved to Kaydia’s side. “I’m making him understand,“ Her flesh hand came up to caress Kaydia’s face, running the back of two fingers from her temple to her chin. “You needed this, after what happened to you. After what he let happen to you ” Kaydia’s face contorted in pain, regretting her own weakness, regretting the way she would continue to betray and let him down because of her won weakness. He wasn’t hers to keep. “He will understand, Kaydia. Once I’m done with him.”

  “Wait. Not like this…” Kaydia pleaded as Linora turned to resume the task at hand. Placing her hand on Linora’s shoulder, she fought against the emotions warring within her. Self-loathing at betraying him, at knowing she wasn’t good enough for him. Needing to have him, to keep him, to feel him against and inside her again. “There’s another way. A better way.”