Tabitha

by Hall, Andrew

  ‘Er… thank you,’ Tabitha murmured, frightened, uncertain if that was what she meant to say. It was an automatic response. Seven had protected them from a threat, after all. She was right to thank him. But mostly she was terrified by what she saw in him. A true monster; as cruel and vicious as it was gigantic. Tabitha felt the ground shake beneath her feet again, only this time so much stronger. There was a sudden deep drone over the hills. The whole mountain seemed to be trembling with a tremor; stone walls around her began to shake and tumble down. Seven joined his guttural growl to the creeping tide of hellish thunder, and fixed his eyes on a colossal dark shape that threw a vast shadow across the clouds. Whatever was coming for them, it was big enough to shake mountains. Seven was staring intently, ready to attack. Tabitha whistled to him, and he looked away from the shadow and down at her. He hadn’t heard her shouting to him.

  ‘You can’t fight that thing!’ Tabitha called up to him, with Fishbowl struggling in her arm. ‘It’ll kill us! Let’s just go!’ Seven carried on growling at the vast shape emerging. He looked back down to Tabitha and relented, sweeping down onto the square and lowering his body for them to climb in.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tabitha said softly, stroking his neck as the saddle lowered her and Fishbowl down into the cockpit. ‘Now let’s get the hell away from that thing!’ Tabitha set Fishbowl free beside her seat as the hatch closed, and she plugged into Seven’s sight. He felt there again, no longer just grey concrete software; he was a massive animal intensity in the back of her mind. Tabitha launched Seven into the air and tore off through the clouds, leaving the vast dark shape to cast its shadow down over the mountain city.

  45

  Seven shot between hills and swept down over arid plains, kicking up a boiling desert dustcloud in his wake. Tabitha watched the dry plains disappear beneath them and give way to steep jagged mountains that jutted into the sky. She thought back to the fight. She’d seen the grey dragon gush silver blood. Heard its screams as Seven had torn it apart. But… if not the grey dragon’s frightened screams, then it would have been hers instead when it came to kill her. She felt bad for Seven. He’d done the right thing, brutal and terrifying though it was. He’d saved their lives. She wanted him to know that thought. That she was grateful. She felt a tension release between them then, somewhere in the back of her mind. Like the filter had lifted. His forgiveness. Tabitha smiled, and reached out and stroked the wall of the cockpit. She could feel the bond between them, really feel it in her head, like shining silver strands connecting their minds. All of a sudden she felt a rising anger in him. She felt his growling vibrate the cockpit. Dark shapes were following them in the sky overhead. Tabitha didn’t need to guess what they were.

  ‘Hold on tight,’ she told Fishbowl, taking a tentacle and touching it the metal nest around the seat. Fishbowl took hold of the nearest metal rib, and anchored itself firmly with all its arms as Seven began to tilt. Tabitha turned Seven around to see what they were up against. A large pack of grey dragons, and the vast black shape creeping along far behind. Tabitha felt a rabid fury rising up in Seven’s mind, just like she had when they were faced with the battleship. Only this time, she didn’t try to hold him back. She was sick of running.

  ‘Tear them apart,’ she told him. Seven snarled, wild and raw. They swept higher and tore off towards the dragons. The leader of the grey pack belched a white jet of flame down on them. It shook the cockpit, but did no damage. Tabitha yelled, Seven roared, and they smashed into the dragon and bit deep down into its neck. The leader struggled against Seven’s claws and bit back. Seven growled and flinched, but Tabitha didn’t feel it. She wanted to tear its throat out, so that was what Seven did. She wanted to break its wings off and send it plummeting to the desert far below; Seven obliged. Tabitha looked up at a second dragon swooping down on them from above, and had Seven meet it head-on in a feral wrestling match.

  ‘Fuck you!’ she screamed from the cockpit. Seven roared demonic. Minds joined, they spat a fireball into it. The grey dragon staggered at the blast. She and Seven were straight in there to crack its head in their jaws. A third dragon crashed into them from behind and tore a scale from Seven’s back. Seven growled and spun around, and crunched the dragon’s jaws together in his own. Another chomp and its head caved in with a bloody gush, and Tabitha opened Seven’s claws to send the mangled creature flailing lifelessly to the ground. Another dragon collided with them, and another from behind. They couldn’t fight away the third one too, snapping at their wings and tearing away Seven’s scales. She felt Seven panicking as a fourth and a fifth descended on them. Tabitha took control of his wings. She curled them round into hollow arms, like she’d seen him do before when he was walking, and hurled a punch at the dragon in front of them. It snarled and broke away, and a second punch freed Seven’s wing from the snapping jaws of another. Seven’s huge flightless body was too heavy for their grasping claws, and suddenly Tabitha felt them falling free. She opened up Seven’s wings and took off into the sky, spitting fireballs at the dragons that followed in their wake. They couldn’t take on the pack all on at once, Tabitha realised. Seven was strong but he wasn’t unstoppable. She’d have to lead them on and pick them off one by one – unless the pack picked them off first, one diving bite at a time.

  Seven tore over stark desert. The grey dragons followed close behind. They sank low towards the sand, churning up dusty beige jetstreams in their wake. Tabitha twisted Seven around a jagged hill, slowed to let the dragons overtake, and let Seven catch up and tear the straggler to pieces. Seven tore it wing from wing in a firework burst of silver blood, and threw the creature away to crash down dead in the desert. The rest turned in the air and filled the sky with white fire. Seven burst through the flames and smashed into the dragon in the middle. Tabitha folded his wings and they dropped from the sky with the grey dragon flailing in their claws. Seven ploughed the dragon head-first into the ground, cratering the sand in a thumping burst. He took a solid grip around the dragon’s neck, and tore its head from its body in a silver gush. Tabitha yelled and Seven roared as they leapt back into the sky, and together they tore apart another in the pack. Suddenly Tabitha felt a searing pain in her back, and realised that she felt what Seven felt. A dragon behind them had clawed off a scale and bit Seven’s skin, tearing into bloody white flesh. Seven spun around savagely and sank his teeth into the dragon’s throat, biting over and over until the bloody body dropped dead from his claws. Another dragon bit down into Seven’s wing and another caught his tail, tearing off the tip. He was getting pinned down.

  ‘Go!’ Tabitha yelled, wrestling Seven’s mind away from his fury and taking off into the sky. Seven trailed blood as he tore off over the desert; a sparkling silver rain in the hard hot sunlight. The dragons followed behind like a pack of dogs, looking for the next chance to jump in. Tabitha and Seven turned to see them crowding the pale sky behind.

  ‘Wait,’ said Tabitha, taking a firm hold of Seven’s mind. From the corner of her eye, she saw the dragons gaining on them. ‘Now!’ Seven spun around and snatched a dragon from the sky, crunching its throat in his fangs. He dropped it and shot off again, forcing the dragons to bank around and change direction to tail him. Tabitha steered him into a wild spiral and took off in another direction again, keeping the dragons working for their prey. They’d be easier to fight when they were tired. Seven’s next retaliation went wrong though. Tabitha didn’t look before she spun around to face them, and two dragons smashed into them and bit down deep into Seven’s throat. Tabitha screamed at the pain and wrenched Seven away, but he was already slowing down. They felt another smash from behind, and a chunk torn from Seven’s side. Another from his back, and claws scratching at his head. Seven twisted and writhed in the sky as they mobbed him, fighting away one assault after another. Suddenly Tabitha felt a rush of panic from him. He was afraid for his life. Seven broke away from the pack and climbed ever higher, shooting straight up into the sky. Tabitha saw a split-second vision in his frightened mind, wi
th a feeling too. Stars. Space. Safety, mixed with fear. A last resort.

  ‘You can go up there?’ she said, shocked. ‘Go then! Go!’ she yelled. How could he breathe up there? Was that why he was afraid? Seven tore up into the dark high atmosphere, his jet scales flaring with all the energy he had left. The grey dragons were all around him, closing the gap. They attacked from all sides in vicious volleys, and Tabitha felt Seven running out of strength to fight them all back. Another bite here, another cut there. Grappling him and pulling at his wings; tiring him out. Wearing away at him until his climb for freedom was a hellish struggle. Suddenly the desert spun far beneath them as Tabitha fought for control.

  ‘Come on!’ she yelled, urging Seven to carry on climbing. She felt him lagging, beaten and bloody. When one of the dragons crashed into them from the side and bit down into his wing, Tabitha could barely get Seven to struggle against it.

  ‘Come on!’ she screamed again desperately, wrenching his bloody wing away from the clamping jaws and leaving a piece behind. But they weren’t climbing for the distant stars any more. Seven snarled in pain and nose-dived, and Tabitha strained to straighten him up. Her vision was fading to black as Seven tried to stay conscious. With his mind fading from her grip, Tabitha couldn’t get in there to take control. She couldn’t pull him up; they were just falling now. Tabitha tried desperately to get back into his head, but it was like watching the world through a grimy old window. An eternal drop to the desert as the pack dived on at their heels. Tabitha made out a mountain looming below, a vast rocky plateau that towered over the desert. It came up quicker now, and she felt Seven’s jets splutter and stop. She wrestled to open his wings out, trying to slow their fall. It was an aching strain on her mind, like lifting a rock. As the flat mountaintop got closer and rose up beneath them, all Tabitha could do was try to slow Seven down for the impact. They kicked up a dust trail behind them across the mountaintop, and Tabitha saw Seven’s shadow getting larger beneath them as they flew lower. The racing rocky ground got closer, closer… and bit. Seven ploughed head-first into the mountaintop and buckled at the impact, somersaulting with a violent jerk and smashing into the dirt. Tabitha’s vision went black, and she felt blood rush to her head. She sank back out of Seven’s mind and looked around the cockpit in panic, almost upside down. She unfastened her harness with trembling hands. When the straps came loose, she fell down hard on her shoulder against the wall.

  ‘Fishbowl?’ she said breathlessly, gripping her shoulder in pain as she looked around the cockpit. The creature was hidden away behind the seat, grasping on tight. Breathing sharp shocked breaths.

  ‘You’re ok,’ she said, stroking Fishbowl’s arms. It tensed up and moved away though, backing right up into the corner. Tabitha looked up at the seat for the white ring of light to open the hatch, but it wasn’t there. Instead she had to press her hands against the saddle hatch and force it open, and suddenly the dust and the desert light flooded her blinking eyes. She staggered out onto the rocky mountaintop, and saw huge dark shapes circling overhead.

  ‘Seven!’ she yelled, running around to look her dragon in the eyes. She stepped back in horror then, as his silver blood pooled huge on the sand around her feet. Seven blinked his white eyes open slowly, and made a low tortured growl.

  ‘Oh god,’ Tabitha sobbed, laying her palms on his big broad snout. His torn flesh gushed. Seven tried to move, growled with the pain, and collapsed down altogether in his blood. The dragons landed down around them, surrounding them in a wide circle on the mountaintop. Tabitha tried desperately to stop Seven’s bleeding, planting her hands down tight against a huge gushing wound in his neck. It was no use. The silver blood spurted out with all the force of a broken water main, soaking her catsuit and the desert sand. Tabitha felt a shaking tremor then, and watched the ground trembling through teary eyes. Up above something blocked out the sun over the mountain. It was the vast black ship that had loomed over them in the clouds; the one they’d had to run from. It was back.

  The hulking black ship stabbed the desert landscape with its presence, dwarfing the flat mountain beneath it. It was a ribbed monstrosity, a death-black hybrid of whale and squid. Bigger than Tabitha thought possible. She stuck close to Seven as a small black craft descended on them, no bigger than a fly when it darted out from the mothership’s belly. Tabitha was tired of running. Tired of being the freak. She just wanted to finish what those things had started. With tired teary eyes she watched the alien transport descend like a giant black wasp.

  ‘I’m going to protect you,’ she said, looking into Seven’s half-open eyes. ‘If they even come near you I’m going to tear them apart.’ The raw drone of jet engines kicked up a dust cloud in front of them, and the black craft lowered itself down onto solid spidery legs. As the front hissed open and a tall dark figure emerged, Tabitha put herself between Seven and the transport. It looked just like the figure she’d seen long ago on the edge of the castle field, studying the fight against the Ghosts. A watcher. It walked down the white ramp towards her. It wore a mask and a black flight suit like hers, though it looked more armoured. It must have been taller than her by a good two feet or more. Everything about it was elongated; elegant. Sinister.

  ‘Come any closer and I’ll fucking execute you!’ Tabitha screamed at it, pulling the knife from her belt. The grey dragons looked on silently, like an audience of towering statues. The desert wind whipped up sand around them, cold and dry on the silent mountaintop. The watcher was still striding towards her. More dragons circled above them. A swarm of spiders came scuttling out of the craft, surrounding her and Seven. The alien figure stopped in the middle of the circle, and held out its hand to her. Beckoning her to come closer.

  ‘Are you letting me surrender?’ Tabitha said cautiously, walking towards it. More figures watched from the craft. She saw them over the alien’s shoulder as she drew nearer. Slowly, carefully, Tabitha closed the last few feet between them. Gently, the alien reached out its hand to her. Tabitha watched it warily. All the fighting could be over, all the fear and all the running; all she had to do was take its hand. But she was a Ghost. The last one. And Ghosts went out fighting. Tabitha pounced and struck with the knife. The figure grabbed her and threw her to the ground in a whispering cloud of dust. Seven barked a blood-gurgling roar at the sight of Tabitha going down. She ran at the watcher again and flew back down to the sand in a daze, only realising after a couple of seconds that she’d taken a hard punch to the head. The watcher walked over to Seven, and held its palm out before the dragon’s jaws. Seven was growling savagely, but was struggling to move at all. The watcher said something Tabitha didn’t understand, and seemed unhappy with Seven’s behaviour. As she staggered to her feet, Tabitha watched the figure place its palm on Seven’s snout. A small flash of light and Seven’s white eyes flickered to black, and his huge body collapsed dead on the ground. Tabitha screamed and ran at the watcher, and she felt a gunshot hammer into her back. She smacked face-down in the dirt, coughing sand. Tabitha rolled painfully onto her back and realised she couldn’t get up. She saw more watchers tying cords between Seven and their transport ship. Dragging his lifeless body in beneath the craft’s spider legs; taking hold. Tabitha watched the hard blue sky swim in a daze. The glowing gunshot wound was draining all the energy out of her, exhausting her. She could barely keep her eyes open, and fighting it only made it worse. The world twisted and faded away as she lost consciousness. More watchers crowded around to take hold of her.

  Tabitha came around for a moment, drifted out, came around again. They’d docked and left the transport behind in a hangar; the watchers must have brought her onto the monstrous mothership looming over the mountain. She was being dragged down a ribbed white corridor brighter than heaven; one long fleshy ribcage. She glanced down at glowing cuffs on her wrists; some kind of energy. Tough as steel. She looked up and saw the stretched black figures escorting her, scaled and armoured. Gripped with panic, she gasped and struggled against a tentacle grip around her tor
so. Something was carrying her; something huge and monstrous. Her fevered struggling earned her another paralysing shot to the chest. The white living walls faded from sight again as the dark figures dragged her on down the corridor.

  Tabitha woke again to the sound of alien voices, sonorous and beautiful. Their words were a mystery. She found herself imprisoned in a beam of light, bound to the confines of a bright circle on the silver floor. She stood up in a panic, pressing at the light around her. It was a bizarre sensation, like touching a rounded wall that wasn’t there. They’d taken her belt, her knife, her catsuit. Instead she was wearing something cream-white and fitted like fibrous skin, blinking all over with tiny lights. Again she tried to push against the beam of light around her. Tried to hit it, claw at it. Nothing. Pure resistance. The room around her was some kind of lab; a towering transparent space with walls like twisting sculpted glass. It was a silent palace, striking and empty. How could such a beautiful place feel so terrifying? Tabitha turned in the beam to look around her. The light in the room was coming from the walls itself, a soft cold daylight, coursing up the glass cliffs like a pulsing current. When Tabitha’s eyes followed the room around to the back, she froze and stared. Something was writhing there, half-hidden in a blackness that covered the back of the room. A gigantic black mass, flowered and tentacled. The blue drooling bloom at its centre looked big enough to swallow Seven whole. Was it part of the alien ship? Some of its thick arms were melded with the glassy walls, feeding pulsing waves of power into the room.