“Sorry. Just… We can… Explore…” I bite my lip. Hard. Anything to get my shit together. “Later. Let’s talk about this later. Right now…”
Syl nods, snapping back into warrior mode in a flash. “Right. I apologize. It has been… A long time since I have mated.”
“No need for that,” Mika says, leaning into the alien. “Also, hey, you know… Thank you! For coming back to us. For saving us.” She gives Syl a strange little no armed hug and kisses her again. This time it’s far more chaste, a little peck on the cheek.
“I have not saved you yet.” Syl casts a quick glance behind her. Blood paints her hands. “I killed your guards, and a few more to get your weapons. Their bodies are out of the way, as is this cell, but it is only a matter of time until they are noticed. There are at least twenty more of my kind here. They are not as strong or as fast as me, not after this place has… Enhanced me. But they are soldiers. If they discover us…” She takes Mika in, still leaning drunkenly against her. “Well, it will be a rough fight.”
“Uhh, little help?” I say, still sprawled against the wall with my business district on full display. “Mind helping me up?”
“Hmm, I don’t know,” Mika says, winking at Syl. “Have him right where we want him.”
“Indeed,” she says, flicking her long tongue out again. She shivers with pleasure at what she tastes, half closing her large, slitted eyes.
“Uh, did you get a dose of the spores, too?”
Syl straightens, like she’s embarrassed, before turning away and nodding. She lifts her hands, turning them over so I can see her unscaled palms. They’re lacerated, shallow cuts that are already tinged green from sap. “I… Overestimated my durability.”
Damn. When she vaulted off the tree. “Are you…?”
“Functional. For now.” She licks her lips, glances downward. “All the more reason we must go. We have less than twenty Earth minutes.”
“Shit,” I say, struggling to my knees. Syl lifts me the rest of the way easily, one hand gripping my bicep like a vise. A moment later the shackles fall away.
I tuck myself back into my pants as she releases Mika’s cuffs. Mika takes in my bruised and bloody wrists as she pulls her shirt down. She winces. “S… Sorry,” she says. “I think I did that.”
“Worth it.”
She laughs, mumbles something that sounds distinctly like Goddamn right.
“Come. We must run,” Syl says. She hands us our weapons, dull and powered down. They light with life the moment they touch our skin. “I have scouted this facility. The exit is near the front wall.”
“Where are we, in relation?”
“The back.”
I sigh. “Of course.”
My rifle purrs to life in my hands like a pet returned to its master. Mika’s staff flares at her touch, so bright I have to look away. Then it fades, pulses low, before brightening again. “Oh, my,” Mika laughs. “Come on, boy, you can do it.” The crystal goes completely dark.
Syl and I eye her warily. “Uh, maybe I should carry it,” I say.
“Hey,” Mika says, giving me a fearsome glare that’s completely undermined by her swaying in place. “I got this.” She plants the butt of the staff in the ground for support, leaning heavily on it.
“On second thought, maybe a walking stick would be handy. Just, you know… Watch where you’re waving that thing.”
“Oh, don’t worry, love,” she says, leaning in conspiratorially. She puts her lips to my ear, and then whispers so loud they must be able to hear it outside. “Not even close to being done with you.”
Syl raises a delicate eyebrow. “Remember what I said about getting my feelings hurt?”
Mika gives her a look I can’t quite decipher, but there’s no jealousy in it. Not possessiveness. Maybe because she’s riding the spore train to happy town.
I shake my head. This is way too much to unpack right now. “We should go.”
Syl casts a last, appraising glance between us. “Ready?”
We nod. She turns away and starts for the door.
I stop her with a touch to her shoulder. “Syl, thank you. For coming back for us.”
Her look is incredulous. “What else would I do? You are clan.”
“Thank you, all the same. But, why didn’t you tell us?”
She considers me a long moment. “I do not know you. Not yet. We are clan, but we have known each other only hours. I will fight for you, die with you if I must, but that does not mean that I know you well enough to know how you would bluff your way through a tense confrontation.” She looks out the door, and her claws extend. “Before we were forced to the stars, my people were warlike. Xenophobic. I knew they would never let you approach if you were not prisoners. But we had to be convincing. If you had given away my gamble, we would all be dead right now.”
In other words, she doesn’t know us well enough to know that we wouldn’t fuck things up. We may be clan, but we’re still unknown quantities. I don’t blame her for that line of thinking, but in this case, a lot of worry and fear would have been avoided if she’d said something.
My plate reads 00:14:09. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Syl shrugs. “As you wish.”
Outside, two guards stationed a few feet on either side of the door lay dead. Their necks are wickedly slashed, twin cuts so deep their heads are half decapitated. Syl hefts one like a sack of potatoes, nods to the other, which I lift with far less ease. We toss them into the cell, and Syl closes the door with a rapid set of clicks to the panel. “We do not have time to clean the blood,” she says. In the distance, the autocannons fire faster, their rapid pulsing like some kind of terrifying techno beat. Syl stares toward them, tongue flicking out absently. “Hopefully, they will be distracted enough that we can escape.”
“Knowing this place, I somehow doubt it’ll go that easily,” I say, putting my arm around Mika and guiding her after Syl, who slips to the corner of the opposite building.
She peers around the edge of the building, a quick dart of her head that magnifies how alien and snakelike she is at times. “Clear.”
My memory of the outpost is hazy, at best. Stupid, not paying more attention as we were led through. “Which way?”
“These are the barracks and intelligence center for the facility,” Syl whispers, slapping the wall she’s leaning against. “It’s the largest building, holding the center of the grounds. I would suggest we go over it,” she says, flexing her claws, “but I do not think she would make it.”
Mika nods happily. “Not a chance in hell.”
“As I thought. In that case, we will have to go around. There is very little cover, but we do not have time to wait. If you see one of my people, eliminate them as quickly and as quietly as you can.”
I huff in frustration. “My gun isn’t exactly quiet.”
“Then fire only when necessary. If we have to–” She cocks her head, eyes narrowing.
“What? What is it?” Mika asks, leaning dangerously far around the corner.
“Something…” Syl’s eyes widen, and her scales flush bright with what I’m realizing means excitement. “Do you hear it?”
I follow Mika’s lead, peering around the corner, trying to shut out the autocannons. No, wait. Instead, I listen closer. “They’re firing faster.”
“Much faster.”
I learn further, staying low. I can just make out the front wall from here, towering above the squat buildings below. “Damn,” I whistle. “That can’t be good.” The only autocannon I can see from here is turning and pivoting madly, firing so quickly that an almost solid beam of light lances down into the killing field. I can’t see what it’s firing at, but it must be… “Scaag.”
“A lot of them,” Syl says, pulling me back with a light touch to my shoulder. Her palm is surprisingly soft against me, tougher than human skin, but warm. Not scaled. No wonder the tree cut her up.
“Can those guns overheat?”
Syl’s face is grim.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s dumb,” Mika frowns.
“No, it’s perfect, ” I say, adrenaline rising. This can work. “They’re the distraction we need. If there are enough of them to overwhelm the automatic defenses, the Threvians have to respond. That’s when we go.”
Syl doesn’t look convinced. “If the scaag launch a coordinated attack, there may be hundreds of them. More. It may be safer to go to now–”
Suddenly, she spins, catches something out of the air.
No. Someone.
A Threvian squirms in her claws, snarling and reaching for Syl’s neck.
Jesus. If not for her we’d be dead. I didn’t even see him until Syl grabbed him out of the air.
Her face is utterly blank as she holds it back, one hand around its neck and the other gripping its wrist. Its claws are at least an inch long, aimed at Syl’s face. Not nearly as long as hers, and by the way the Threvian strains against her grip, that’s their limit.
But its other hand is free. It darts to its belt where a pistol like a Star Trek phaser rests in its holster.
Syl’s eyes widen. Her claws stretch forward, lengthening, but the Threvian resists her, just strong enough to keep Syl from ending him. Her tongue flicks out, tries to deflect her attacker’s hand, but its tongue meets hers in midair, blocking her strike.
The Threvian bares its teeth triumphantly, little blades that glint in the sunlight.
I raise my rifle and blow his goddamned shoulder off.
He doesn’t have time to scream before Syl seizes the opportunity, drawing her hand from his throat and stabbing forward. All four of her claws pierce his larynx, and then she twists, coring his throat like an apple.
Blood spurts over us as the Threvian falls bonelessly.
Syl heaves a huge breath. “Thank you. I thought I was dead.”
“See, that’s the problem.” I use my wadded shirt to wipe violet blood from my chest. “You fight like you’re alone. You’re not.”
Syl regards me. Years of working various jobs and spending nights in bars made it pretty easy for me to understand people’s faces, but she’s too alien and her features are too strange for me to get a good read on her. Finally, she turns away. “We need to move. Your shot will have drawn attention,” she says, nodding to a smoking black hole in the outpost’s wall.
Mika’s been silent, leaning heavily against the wall during all this. She coughs. “I don’t… Don’t have much left in the tank, Sam.” She’s eyeing me, eyeing Syl, with frightening hunger. Her breathing is rasping and low, and I can smell the desire in the air. “Can’t… Can’t fight this much longer.”
Syl tastes the air, glancing around the corner. “I can carry her, if I need to. But we must–”
She trails off. It doesn’t take long to realize why.
Hooting. So concentrated, so loud that it’s a tidal wave of sound, rolling up and washing over the outpost. The thrum of the autocannons is completely drowned out as the scaag’s eerie cries rise up.
“Too late,” I yell, not worried about being overheard. No one else could hear me, not over this. “Time to go!”
Without waiting for permission, Syl hefts Mika over her shoulder. She holds her fast with one arm, retracting the claws on that hand.
Mika squawks, wriggles. “Hey!” She shouts. “Put me down! I can… I can walk…” Her voice trails off as she runs her hands along Syl’s back. “Mmm.” She kisses Syl’s back, a little brush of her lips.
Syl looks more surprised by that then her attacker only moments ago. She looks to me, a little wild eyed. Like she’s having trouble fighting the spores off, too.
I shrug. “We better go.”
She nods.
Ready.
She dashes around the corner around the corner first, then immediately skids to a halt.
I crash into her back. “Why did you–” The question dies in my throat. I know why she’s stopped. “Oh, fuck that .”
It’s chaos.
A dark wave of scaag mount the top of the wall, at least two dozen of them, screaming in fury. The autocannons spin wildly, firing at point blank range. One turns as a scaag vaults up next to it, tears its head off with a pulse of blue light that arcs into the darkening sky. Another is just behind it, dying just as quickly. But then two more launch upward like they’ve been shot by catapults. One of them holds a stone club the size of a tree trunk, and it bellows its odd, hooting roar as it descends on the gun. The cannon turns upward, fires into the scaag’s chest, boring a hole through its torso, but it’s too late. The club comes down, smashes the gun into a mess of sparking wire and exploding circuits.
Below, the remaining Threvians stand in a line, weapons pointed upward. The pulses from their rifles are silent over the unending hooting of the scaag. They stand firm, unbending, showing no signs of retreat or fear in the face of an increasingly overwhelming army.
All this happens in the span of ten seconds. Ten seconds we stand silent, awed at the spectacle. “Why aren’t they all on the wall?” I shout.
“Some were,” Syl says, nodding upward. At one point, spaced between autocannons, a mangled wreckage of blood and bone hangs halfway over the wall. A scaag crouches amongst the gore, pulling forth a huge wad of flesh that it stuffs down its throat. Moments later, a shot from below tears through it, and it falls out of sight with a wail I can’t hear.
We need to run, to move. Syl is already hunched, about to spring. I grab her shoulder before she can leave me. “We need to go! Which way?”
“There!” she says, looking back like she’s just remembering I exist.
The building she points to is another low pile of chalky brick, set into the outpost wall.
Directly between scaag that now fall like boulders and the wall of Threvians, firing up at them.
Of course.
“Take her!” Syl shouts, throwing Mika into my arms. I don’t have time to protest, reposition my rifle, before her full weight rests against my chest. I hold her in the classic Disney princess pose, one arm beneath her back and the other under her legs. It’d be pretty romantic if not for… Well… Everything else.
Syl turns away.
“Wait, what are you –”
“Follow! I’ll carve a path!” Then she’s gone, not waiting for my response.
“God damn it. She did it again.”
“Shh,” Mika purrs against my chest, words only half audible. “It’s okay. When we get out of here, I’m going to fuck you until you can’t feel feelings anymore. I’m going to…” She trails off to bite my nipple so hard I yelp. “I'm going to suck until you…”
I shut her out. As ridiculously hot as all that is, spores or no, now is not the time.
Syl is already halfway to her people, flowing like glittering ink across the compound. I jog after her, trying to see everywhere at once. I’m not sure what she’s planning, but I will be there to help when she acts.
The scaag own the wall, now. The autocannons are wreckage, finally silent, and all that’s kept the attackers from descending like an avalanche is a fusillade of energy thrown up by the Threvians. The strike commander shouts out orders I can’t hear and a few of his soldiers split, peeling off from the outer edges of their line to watch their flanks. Luckily, their attention is focused solely upward, and they don’t notice Syl creeping behind them.
What the hell is she going to do? If she attacks the Threvians, the scaag will overwhelm us all. But somehow, I doubt her people are going to let us pass to the exit without a fight.
Then again, maybe that’s our only shot. It’s only a few feet, ten or so, from the Threvians to the building Syl pointed out. If we run, hope that her kin can’t spare us the attention…
“Syl!” She doesn’t respond, flowing up behind the commander. “Syl!” I shout. I’m only fifteen feet behind her, but she doesn’t hear me.
Or she ignores me.
Eight claws draw back, then lance forward.
They erupt from the commander’s chest in a cri
mson fountain. Blood froths from his mouth as he twitches, skewered, before she draws back and lets him fall.
There’s an odd moment of surprise, almost silence, from everyone. Even the scaag, as if her move was so unexpected that their tiny animal brains can’t comprehend it. Both sides stare at Syl for a two second eternity.
And then all hell breaks loose.
The Threvians turn, fire at her as she dodges away and dances between sizzling bolts of energy. The scaag immediately seize the opportunity, dropping like boulders, and in five beats of my heart two dozen of them are in the courtyard. They rip into the Threvians, half of whom are still trying to kill Syl.
“Go, go!” She shouts, leaning back like Neo as a shot crackles over her chest.
I’m running before I have time to think. She’s made the decision for me, and I don’t have time to debate. A scaag rushes to meet us, a hunk of wood the length of my body held like a baseball bat. Mika is heavy in my arms, but I manage to duck just as he swings, skidding on my knees. I stagger up, but not fast enough.
The scaag doesn’t relent, halts his swing and reverses, muscles the size of my head rippling. He howls as he brings his club back around. There’s nowhere to go. I don’t have time to duck.
Inferno blazes to life. Mika, still in my arms, lashes out with the arm not trapped against me. The flaming crystal hits the scaag in its fist where it grips the club. It’s like a miniature sun detonating at two feet away. The power is intense, and I have to close my eyes to avoid being blinded.
But there’s no pain. Just heat. My hair doesn’t burn away, and my skin doesn’t sizzle like bacon. Neither does Mika’s, judging by her dark laugh.
The scaag, on the other hand, isn’t so lucky. It’s club lays at our feet, a burning brand that I have to shuffle back from. The alien lays dead, half of its body aflame an already melting.
“Damn.” I struggle to my feet, set Mika down.
“Damn right.” She’s shaky but seems more solid than before.
“I think you’re enjoying this too much,” I say, trying to find Syl in the chaos ahead of us.
Another evil laugh from behind me as I sight with my now freed rifle. I squeeze off a few shots that rip through lines of scaag and at least one Threvian, but it hardly makes a difference. There are so many.
Aspirant: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 19