by Scott Toney
“We will not leave you.” Marlay stepped in front of her as Hailn walked before her and looked away, watching the light-insects dance. “These are our people. We have no home without them. We will know no peace. We are not bonded with essences, but what strength we have is yours.”
Hailn turned toward them. “I agree. Though I do not know what we can accomplish, especially without weapons.”
As if summoned, Vrax scuttled in the center of the three. “Extraction of metallic alloys from stone can be utilized for forging.” Its eyes glowed cold orange. “Is effect desired? Which are the objects of choice?”
Julieth eyed the bot. “I think that’s the first time you’ve offered me an option instead of leading me blindly into something.” She glanced at Marlay. “I believe it wants to know what weapons you’d like.”
Marlay gave it a wary look. “It can’t really create things, can it? A blade perhaps? I watched you fire your electricity weapons but I have no experience with things like that.”
“Are you sure?” Julieth kneeled down closer to Vrax. “My experience with the bot tells me it can create pretty much anything.”
“Yes, I am good with a sword. I couldn’t imagine using anything other.”
“And you, Hailn?”
“I’ll chance two of those.” He pointed to the guns Julieth clasped in her hands. “We’ll need more force if we’re to press forward. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
Vrax clutched low, digging its limbs into the rock below it. “Orders processed.” Gears on its back lit and the illumination traveled down its limbs to where they disappeared in the rock. Unlike the melting of the bars Vrax now extracted metal from the stone itself, bringing it up and out of a tube in its back, forming a boiling mass around its body as steam curled up from its form.
“We need to step back,” Julieth spoke, moving away with the others and wondering just how much metallic alloy the bot would need to forge a sword.
The molten glowed red as it pooled the width of a man around Vrax, different patterns swirling as metals reacted with one another. It hardened on the edges and glowed a low hue as the chill cooled it. After some time Vrax thrashed up to the top of the substance and began cooling, cutting and forming the patterns and metallic connections needed to complete its tasks.
Julieth, Marlay and Hailn stood in wonder watching it.
It is beyond us, Julieth thought. That realization scared her. I’ve witnessed Vrax do so much, but it is operating completely on its own now. Why would it choose to come to me, to fight for us? Are you more than you appear?
When it had finished both guns and Marlay’s sword, Julieth realized there were also other things with definite form lying on the ground about them. “What are they?” she asked, going to one of the curved yet plate-like things and lifting it to where the light-insects swirled. The thing’s edges were intricate and glowed softly. There was a hinge in its center.
“Armor,” Vrax responded crisply. “Leg and arm shielding for each.”
“Thank you.” She took the piece in her hands and clasped it to her calf. It braced tight to her muscle and warm heat moved through it.
Vrax clicked up the armor and pressed its form against it, becoming one with the piece.
Nearby Marlay held a sword the length of her torso before her. It was crude, with no patterning, but Julieth could easily see the strength within its cut. The light from the insects danced off the blade.
Hailn lifted one of the guns, holding it before him and eying it intently.
“Bring it here and I’ll show you,” Julieth said while clasping her final piece of limb armor to her forearm. Steam sprayed from its joints as it sealed tight to her muscle.
Hailn held it awkwardly and she got a good look at his sunken eyes as he came. “Are you certain you would not rather have a sword or dagger?” she asked.
“No, these seem much more effective. How do you cause the blast?” He brought the weapon up, eying its barrel.
Julieth stood behind him and clasped his hand, holding it firm against the gun and stretching out his arm, which was shorter than hers. “Respect them. The damage they cause is intense. One misfired shot could be…”
“I understand,” Hailn assured her.
“Do you feel this?” She moved his finger along the slightly raised trigger sensor. “It is incredibly sensitive. You can look through the groove on the gun’s top to aim, but we won’t have that time. Make sure Marlay and I are nowhere nearby where you intend to blast. After the shot, your arm will thrust backwards and balk you. I wish you had the ability to practice, but we can’t risk drawling the attention. Perhaps you should only use one.” She eyed the second gun on the cavern floor nearby as she let his hand go. Marlay had already clasped on her armor and approached the darkness of the passage before her. Shivers ran up Julieth’s spine and through the marrow of her wings as she heard whisper-like, unintelligible noises coming from the passage.
“I’ll be careful.” Hailn picked up his own armor and attached it before hefting both guns and stepping over the remaining shards of metal.
Julieth nodded, focused on the onslaught of beasts that was sure to come. How Hailn handled himself was distant in her concerns. The likelihood of the three of them succeeding, or just keeping their lives, was slim. How much can this armor take? she wondered while stepping into the passage. It was heavy on her limbs and chest. Perhaps it has the strength of Riad’s cybernetics, because it comes from Vrax’s hand. It won’t be long before we test that.
The light-insects swirled before her, faintly illuminating the claw marked tunnel walls. Blood stained the passage floor.
“How many of my people do you think survive?” Marlay asked as she walked the far side of the passage.
Julieth looked to her, giving a hard glance. She held a gun to her lips. “Shh.” The sound was barely audible, but Marlay nodded with understanding. Julieth then pointed the gun behind them, motioning for Marlay and Hailn to watch her back.
They moved for a distance without confrontation. Sweat crystallized on their skin as their muscles began to relax. Adrenaline began to slow.
As they continued walking the light-insects left Julieth’s side and swirled along the tunnel’s wall. Julieth looked in their direction and then walked near them. Rusted metal. She lifted a hand and touched its flaking shell. There was a small hole in the surface and she moved toward it. A rancid smell wafted over her.
BOOM! The wall flexed as something beat against it from the other side. BOOM! BOOM! The sound echoed around them.
Julieth instinctively ran from it, down the passageway they had come, with Marlay and Hailn close at her heels. She wanted to run all the way back to where they had begun, but knew it would serve no purpose.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Metal screeched as it slammed to the floor, followed by the low voice of a beast moaning in what Julieth hoped was pain.
“Stop!” She put out her arms and was almost hit by the other two. The steel of Marlay’s sword barely missed her arm. Already, the girl looked exhausted. No sleep and plaguing fear will do that, Julieth thought while turning around. “If we are going to make a stand we must do it now, while we still have them off guard.” Her heart beat rapidly as she eyed the dark, aiming a gun into the noir. “Once they have sent out alarms and amassed forces we will be doomed.”
“We are with you.” Marlay spoke as she turned with Hailn to face Julieth. “How do we attack?”
Julieth flexed her wings as far as she could in the tunnel, gauging distance between walls. “Follow me, but keep your distance. Watch my back, Hailn, and only shoot if you are certain to not hit me. Pick them off if they flood past. We have to hope we’ve come across a small pocket and not some larger mass.” She watched Hailn eying the guns with uncertainty. It was not comforting.
They didn’t speak as she thrust her wings, lifting up and forward as light-insects swarmed over her and lit her trajectory. The muscles in her back where the wings connected
were tight from not being used while she was in the cell. Numb pain moved through her back but she forced herself to focus, bracing her guns before her.
Metal shrieked on stone once more and then a loud thud, as low tones echoed down the passage. She heard the sound of several heavy things pounding on the ground and rushing towards them.
She strengthened her diaphragm and twisted her core, curving to the side but still moving forward as her wings curled closer to her form. Two beasts lumbered into the illumination of the light-insects and Julieth shifted her guns toward their torsos. Electricity charged from their barrels, sending a wave of static over her flesh as one beast’s chest cavity burst open with blood and the other’s skull was charred.
Roars of anger erupted further down the passage.
She flew onward, focused on what was before them, as Marlay and Hailn leapt over the scorched beasts.
Julieth clicked the UV light on one of her guns and directed the beam down the passage, watching as several beast forms began to morph back to human form in its illumination.
“You will pay for your insubordination!” one of the things’ guttural voices erupted as they ramped toward her on all fours.
Julieth met the group hard, blasting into them with electricity, severing limbs as they fell roaring in pain. She was at the rusted entrance now that the beasts had made while destroying the wall.
She had hoped to enter their main passages here, but flew backwards toward Marlay and Hailn. Through the opening she had seen a large mass of beasts responding to their fellows’ cries.
“How bad is it?” Marlay breathed heavily as she thrust her sword at a beast lunging for her, severing one of its clawed fingers just before Hailn blasted it in the side. “We can’t hold them off like this for long!”
Julieth searched behind them, debating retreat until she saw the silhouette of something lumbering toward them in the darkness. She turned and blasted another beast’s skull before meeting Marlay’s eyes. “We’re surrounded. We have to fly above them in the tunnel and hope the other side is clear for our escape!”
“Can you carry us both?” Marlay questioned skeptically.
“I have carried heavier for a further distance, but my wings have not seen sunlight since the fall! That is what strengthens them! But we have no other choice than to blast through them!” Dirt then fell on Julieth from above before a beast dropped on her from the cavern roof, gashing her back and wings as she crushed down.
Pain flashed through her as the bones in her wings snapped, feathers flying about them in the dark. She felt the creature digging its claws into the back of her neck just as she realized Vrax was no longer attached to her leg armor. Her body charged with faint currents of electricity as the beast above her filled with charge and then rolled from her back, smoking and wafting a rancid stench.
Vrax reattached as Julieth stood to find Marlay and Hailn also battling the enemy.
She locked off the pain in her mind. Her body would heal thanks to the essences. There was no time to breathe. “Forward!” she shouted, knowing flight was now not an option. She braced her guns before her, filling all matter with charge as blood sprayed over them from the blast.
The beasts clambered over each other and as Julieth and Hailn blasted a path through them Marlay hacked at anything that got past at their flank.
“I need coverage!” Marlay shouted while running a beast through and almost losing her sword in its chest as it fell. It had swiped for her chest and left deep indentations in her breastplate.
Julieth turned, blasting another beast that thrust for Marlay. We will die now, the realization hit her. We should have fled when we had the chance.
A beast burst through the mass, lunging against Hailn and slashing through his arm as he screamed, blasting irrationally around them and managing to char one of Julieth’s wounded but rapidly healing wings. The thing dug through his breastplate and then into his chest cavity before Julieth had a chance to react. The light-insects flew away from him, leaving him completely in the dark. Julieth heard him die, choking on his blood.
Marlay shrieked in horror as a beast leapt for her, crashing into her body and sending her sword clanging into the tunnel wall.
Julieth’s heart raced. She fired a charge and missed, watching it strike over the beast’s head and into another beast approaching from behind.
The creature over Marlay bit down on her exposed neck and shoulder before Julieth charged it with a blast, watching its spine be exposed in the bloody mass left behind. Marlay somehow pushed the thing off her but then lay almost motionless as Julieth blasted at their approaching attackers.
There were too many. They were overcoming her. Suddenly, another beast struck past Julieth toward Marlay, leaping in the air, and collided headlong with a beast from the group behind them.
They crashed down, thrashing at each other and rolling on the stone floor. The light-insects flooded over them and Julieth suddenly realized the group she had been fighting had ceased movement.
“Ragoor!” she shouted, recognizing the beast that had rescued Marlay. She eyed the beasts from the group Ragoor had sprung from. They were different from the others.
“Retreat, you vermin,” a muscular beast from Ragoor’s side spoke in a booming voice to the opposite side. It lifted its warped arm upward and then let it fall, signaling its brethren to attack. The horde of beasts leapt past Julieth and crashed into the ones who had attacked her. Hair was shredded from bodies as roars of pain erupted from the barely visible mass of fighting.
Julieth made her way to Ragoor, who had defeated his foe and now came to stand beside the other towering beast. His chest was scratched and bloody, but he appeared to be in relatively good condition.
“As soon as they attacked, I went for help.” The beast’s eyes shimmered as light-insects hovered near them. His chest heaved as he caught his breath. “I fear they may have tracked my scent to you.”
“We fought them before, remember. It seems Solaris is plagued by your kind. No offense. If they run so rampant beneath the planet’s crust they would have surly stalked us either way.” She eyed the large beast beside Ragoor and then caught herself and ran to Marlay’s side, touching her bloodied shoulder. “She looks near death,” she spoke. “Will she become one of them?”
“Yes,” the tall beast spoke, walking slowly toward her. “She must be killed. She will become one of them, violent and irrational.”
“What if we…” Ragoor began questioning.
“That would be a choice I could not make for her,” the larger beast responded.
Julieth looked to them as Marlay writhed in pain. The roars of the beasts fighting boomed around them. “What are you saying?”
“If we take over the transformation, then she could become one of us.” Ragoor kneeled beside Marlay. “She would be cursed with our blood, but she would retain her intelligence. It would take several infusions, but it is the only way. The process has already begun.”
Julieth thought of the essences. “Would she retain complete control of her thoughts and actions? Would another mind be privy to her thoughts?”
Ragoor looked toward where the essences scarred Julieth’s chest. “Yes and yes. What we are and what the essences have done to you are different things.”
Marlay balked in pain.
“Then I will make the decision for her. Change her. Turn her into one of you instead of them. She deserves to live.” Sweat poured down Julieth’s brow and steamed in the chilled air around them.
“Then hurry. We must drive them back,” the larger beast commanded Ragoor. It held out its clawed hand toward Julieth and she clasped it, feeling the rough texture of its lined flesh as well as its oily hair. “I am Faiyror. Together we will drive the warped blood of my brother’s tribe from your land.”
Steam curled from his maw and around Julieth’s face before rising above them. His eyes were beastlike, and yet she saw deep intelligence within them. “I am Julieth.” She removed her hand from his and h
efted her gun from where she had clasped it to her side. She turned, watching Faiyror’s horde driving back her enemy, roars still erupting from the mass. She could smell blood where the fighting had begun.
Julieth turned back toward Marlay, stunned to watch Ragoor kneeling over her. His maw dug deep in her arm as her body convulsed violently. She stepped toward Marlay’s side, wanting to tell Ragoor to stop, but knew this was Marlay’s sole hope of survival.
When Ragoor withdrew his maw from Marlay’s flesh there were gaping holes in her arm. She did not move. Her other wound from the enemy beast was still fresh.
Her chest does not rise, Julieth suddenly realized. “Is she dead?”
“No. This is what happens when we change.” Ragoor touched his clawed hand to Marlay’s forehead, closing his eyes for a moment and then reopening them.
Marlay sucked a deep gasp, startling as her chest began to rise once more, and then lay limp with her eyes wide but unmoving.
“Carry her,” Faiyror ordered Ragoor. “She will need a second blood-infusion shortly.”
“There are other captives back in the tunnels we came from who are in different stages of change.” Julieth looked to Ragoor with hope. “Can we save them, as you have Marlay? Can anything be done?”
“We cannot go back,” Faiyror injected. “I am the alpha of my tribe. We must remain with the others.”
Ragoor hefted Marlay, the muscles in his hair-covered arms bulging as he supported her weight. She lay limp against him. “In truth, most of them are probably beyond saving. Their lives will need to be extinguished. But there could be a few who we could infect the blood of, so that they could be like us.” He turned to Faiyror. “I will be of little use while having to observe Marlay and reinforce her blood. What if I alone go back and re-infect the humans we can save? If they are beyond help then I will end them.” Ragoor looked back to Julieth. “I am sorry, but if they are past saving it must be done.”