Each Karukai whirled, rolled, dove, and flipped to and fro to evade Serros’s shots. Avara’s movements, a result of innate immediate reaction coupled with the application of a brilliant, strategic mind, flowed from one to the other like water from spout to tankard.
And yet, the two Varda moved as she. Caught in the center–storm of battle, as any outstanding solider knew, it was only a matter of time before one of the three combatants miscalculated.
There!
Serros knocked off three shots where she knew “Birch” was about to land from a crouching spin and…
Yes!
The first two shots hit the Varda in the upper thigh, the third in her heart. With a cry, she tumbled to the ground and under the railing to fall over the side of the walkway. A second later, a heavy thud of impact preceded the kish–kish–splash of a shattered tree of clone tanks.
Captain Serros didn’t have time to revel in her victory, however, for while expertly dodging Avara’s fire, the remaining Karukai Varda was coming in fast, headlong, with her own blazing pistol. Avara felt like the two were locked into some twisted, slow–motion game of chicken where the slightest mistake would be met with the finality of death.
Midstride, the Karukai she’d begun to think of as “Oak” dodged a quintet of fire from Avara’s Stingers even as Oak returned the favor. To escape, Avara literally leaped up and over a stream of chasing bullets from the Varda’s pistol. Finally, the two met a hair apart, and the battle switched from ranged to furious melee, with each woman raining blows and dodges upon and before the other at a speed so rapid and evenly matched, that even Arca enhanced vision could not follow or distinguish.
Deliberately dropping her Stingers to the ground as needless encumbrance, Avara launched no fewer than eight blows in less than a single spent heartbeat to Oak’s chin, left shoulder, left shin, and abdomen. Yet each strike was cleverly deflected or riposted. As they fought, Serros could see the Karukai’s vicious grin, could feel the enjoyment she was experiencing in their physical combat like a real, tangible cloak cast over her shoulders.
Damn Synergy Enhancement!
Then inspiration struck. Serros decided to use what was for a Human, an unexpected talent. As they traded blows, Avara purposely sent a spear of triumph radiating out from her mind, a sense of overwhelming relief directed at something, or, as far as the Karukai was concerned, someone, behind and to Oak’s left.
Serros could see the startlement flit across the Karukai’s proud features. Just after the emotion was issued, almost against her will, Oak turned her gaze slightly over one shoulder. Opponent momentarily deceived, Avara’s fist struck with all the power an Arca Savant with a Physical Potency and Vitality Enhancement could muster. Her only faintly opposed strike clove through armor, synth–skin, cloth, and porcelain flesh alike, leaving nothing but a gaping hole behind. The Karukai’s rose–toned eyes locked onto Avara’s sharp gaze in utter disbelief, even as her right hand reflexively felt for the wound.
A whimper of terror and denial loosed from her throat like cat plunging down a well. Her weakening fingers did little to stop her life’s blood from gushing out of the fist–sized puncture that began at her breast and continued through the outside of her back.
Without cognizant thought, Avara grasped the falling Karukai woman’s shoulders and eased her to the ground. Doing her best to ignore the sight of the Varda’s still reflexively pulsing heart and torn flesh lying on the ground immediately next to them, Avara kept her eyes married to the dying Karukai’s. Moment heavy with significance, Avara gave what she could to the enemy whose life she’d just taken.
In flawlessly pronounced K’avenas, Captain Serros announced quietly “You fought well Varda; rest now from all battle.”
As if trying to say something in return, the Karukai grunted once, blood pouring out of her mouth, before the final trickle of life fled those claret–hued eyes.
Scanning for further enemies and spying none, though noting that the few scientists and techs who’d been present had understandably fled, Avara knew she had to hurry. She knew that time was running out.
Pulling herself to her feet, Serros retrieved her weapons and then with an easy leap, moved to the lowest level once more to begin the process of manually setting each of the warehouse’s six power cores to overload.
CHAPTER 28
Wiping twin beads of sweat from her brow, Avara found herself both swearing and entreating at the same time as she tried to finish the power overload initiation of the clone production warehouse’s fourth power core. “Come on, you bloody beauty, turn!”
“Captain Serros, this is Lieutenant Z’arr, please respond.”
Avara practically bit her tongue clean through, so startled was she at hearing K’llan’s voice. Tamping down the feeling of euphoria that immediately coursed through her at knowing the Vosaia was still alive and well, Avara refocused on her task.
Putting her center into the action but careful not to employ so much strength that she broke the damn thing, Avara pushed down on the currently protruding manual release lever. “I’m here, K’llan. Good to hear your voice.” Avara grated out as she heaved.
“You too, Avara.” The relief that Avara felt was clearly echoed in K’llan’s tone, and Serros worked to concentrate on the task at hand.
Fortunately, focus wasn’t so difficult to manage since there was precisely T–Minus five minutes before the whole clone–tank production center blew.
“Status report?’ Avara asked as she pushed once more.
“I have managed to free the prisoners and they are grouped outside, holding point by the Karukai starfighters with some liberated weapons.”
Creeeeeeiiiick.
The manual release sounded like a bloody bull being sent to slaughter, but it worked.
Got it! Now all I have to do is thumb the ignition switches, and…. “Ha!” Avara whooped. Then, as the full meaning of Lieutenant Z’arr’s words hit her, half–barked, “What do you mean they are holding point? Where are you?”
“Making my way to your position, of course. I should be there momentarily.” K’llan responded, tone vibrating with entirely too much equanimity.
“K’llan! I ordered you to escape with the prisoners. This place is gonna blow in less than five minutes and I have two more power cores to rig. Get out now!” Serros snapped as she stood up, then Arca sped to the next power core and for the fifth time in the last seven minutes, began the sequence to overload the inflow conduit.
“Yes, but the order was rendered entirely unnecessary. Ca’rrakk Commed a few minutes ago.”
“What?”
Avara heard the sudden thud of what seemed to be a body slamming down hard to the ground, followed by several cascades of bullet fire, then K’llan picked up where she had left off. “I was able to catch the communication because I was on the surface. He is about twenty–minutes from making the Outpost and Excalibur is still in orbit.”
Having snapped out the retractable manual release lever and once more carefully exerting her strength to change the core’s flow, Avara gasped out, “That’s fantastic, K’llan! Still doesn’t explain why you’re coming here when I ordered you not to.”
“Your logic was predicated upon the basis that ‘one of us’ had to live to get word out. Ca’rrakk shall now serve that purpose.” Again, Serros found K’llan’s tone to be infuriatingly and imperturbably sure.
“K’llan, I command you…” Serros began.
“Do not, Avara.” K’llan coolly interrupted, her soprano like liquid steel. “You will not send me away to protect my person in the name of duty. Nothing, not even the threat of a court martial, will keep me from ensuring your safety, Nyeria, or from being at your side if the worst is to come. Nothing.”
As she successfully finished moving the stubborn lever into place and keyed the command code, Avara realized there was indeed nothing she could say. No more than any words of K’llan’s would keep Avara from the Vosaia’s side if she was in danger, even in the f
ace of death.
Sighing heavily, Avara stood up and just before she began to move to the sixth and final power core, she ungraciously muttered, “Very well, K’llan. Move, then. Now there’s less than four and half minutes to…”
With no warning whatsoever, dark–blue washed into black as Avara felt a massive wave of force tear into her with armor–shattering potency. Before thought could fully register, her entire body hurtled through space, vision nothing more than a dizzy swirl of tinsel–like light.
Smash… smash…, smash, smash, smash… smash…smash…
Skidding across the grated texture of too–cold durexium flooring, entangled by limbs and soaked with a liquid she couldn’t identify, Avara vaguely realized she was lying on her left side, shoulder screaming, and with something heavy pressed atop her body.
Attempting to clear her blurry vision, Serros grasped with a start that the something was the smooth, jelly–covered nude body of a Karukai clone. The clone was feebly trying to answer the call from brain to body to wake up and reply to the distress it was in.
With lances of burning pain shooting through her like she was a participant in some esoteric fire ritual that involved lying on hot–burning coals, Avara weakly pushed the clone’s soft body off.
The motion caused the clone to fall forward and spasmodically flop like a dying fish caught and left on the sun–heated deck of a fisherman’s schooner.
Heavy eyes attempted to open for the first time even as the gray skinned woman reflexively struggled to remove the cords that were dangling from her body, ripped from their purpose and thus, having left behind tracks of torn flesh. The shock must have been too much for the woman as she began to shudder.
Her eyes opened once, meeting Avara’s, and an aching sound issued from behind the breathing mask that lay half–sundered from her face before she spasmodically jerked a final time and went still, the tank fluid still flowing down and around them both.
Wanting nothing more than to cry and lie still from pain and the sight she’d just witnessed, Avara forced herself to move. As she pushed herself half up, she recognized only then that her entire body was faintly glowing with the remnants of a K–Shield, night–blue light leaking from her flesh like smoky cob–webs.
Must have activated the Shield by reflex.
Looking around, she saw the destroyed remnants of over half a dozen clone tanks, utterly devastated, as if a missile had been released along their path, spilling fluid and clones alike. Fighting a wave of almost overwhelming, pain induced nausea, Avara somewhat belated deduced that she was the projectile that had smashed through the tanks.
The thought scoured across her mind with aching clarity that without a doubt, the K–Shield had saved her life.
Struggling, Avara knew her body wasn’t in much better shape than the ruined tanks. She could see that her armor had been all but entirely blasted off straight through to her skin–suit, and that dozens of glass shards still remained embedded in sundered durexium and flesh alike.
Shakily reaching around to where the back of her skull and neck met, she identified a two inch long, leaf–shaped sliver. Avara brutally pulled out the glass knife that had lodged itself in the lower right portion of her skull. She could feel blood immediately begin to soak her dark hair and pool down her neck with the removal. With precise care, Avara extracted several more glass shards that still jealously took refuge within her skin.
As for the rest of her, Captain Serros could feel that she’d been bruised all over and would lay odds that the fire she felt coursing through her left side translated to a dislocated shoulder and a fractured hip.
Moving as quickly as she could, Avara retrieved her Adrenix Hypo and injected a double dose. Almost crying out in relief, immediately the blur–reducing pain began to subside and the labored cadence of her breathing slowed to a more normal flow.
Despite the agony and her brain’s sluggish cooperation that threatened to drown her in blackness, though she could see no one, Avara knew she wasn’t alone, that only a K–Blast could have hurtled her some forty–plus feet through tank after tank like a child’s toy being tossed in a tantrum.
“Most impressive, Human.” A voice announced a moment later, cool as the chill of first autumn. Avara noted with surprise that the voice spoke in her own native, Old–Terran English, though without the Welsh overtones.
Turning towards the source of that voice, Avara was rewarded with a brutal smash in the side of her face by a dark–heeled boot. The impact tore a cry of pain from her throat as she forced herself to half–roll and half–scramble away from her attacker.
She could feel the hot spray of blood that dripped from her nose, could see the stuff form little islands out of glass bits littering the floor as the liquid pooled on the once–white durexium surface.
With an effort that felt superhuman, Serros made it to her knees to face her attacker head–on.
“Of course, I am not entirely surprised, given the rather astonishing turn of events you and your Vosaia have engendered.”
The blurry smudge resolved itself into the form of a tall, sleekly muscled Karukai woman wearing only a black synth–skin suit, her Varda chevron emblazed on her chest for all the world to see.
“Very touching, by the way, your little exchange.” The smooth–headed Karukai remarked, her voice resonant with a strange combination of humor, contempt, and reluctant admiration. “Nyeria. Now there is a word one does not often hear, and with a barbarian, no less!” The last was said with a laugh, a lovely sound utterly at odds with its meaning.
Kneeling before Avara, ruby–jewel–red eyes glittering with some unfathomable emotion as Avara met her gaze while wheezing for breath, the Varda whispered “Most unusual.”
This close, Avara could clearly make out all of the Karukai’s features, from her large, almost voluptuous lips to the graceful yet somehow stubborn lines of cheek and jaw. Amusement and intrigue played in her eyes and the upturn of those full lips as she lazily regarded the battered Human before her.
“I am Captain Ry’ar Vael, Avara. Tell me your designation.”
Vael? That name triggered something, some bit of stored datum, but Avara was hard put to process right now, and like a sleep addled brain combating a blaring duty alarm, the meaning eluded her.
Understanding very well that the Karukai woman already clearly knew much of who she was by the wording of the question and, equally understanding that prevarication would gain her nothing but conversation might buy her a few precious seconds, Avara decided to play along. “Captain Avara Serros, Quorum Shield Operative.”
“My, my; so famous a Human has come to Dantis.” Vael responded. “I know who you are, Captain of the QS Excalibur.” She whispered. Then, moving with the speed and suddenness of a striking serpent, the woman grabbed Avara’s chin with two, hard pressing fingers, painfully forcing her face closer until their chins were only a bare breath apart.
“Decorated war hero of the Ministry Navy and of the Quorum.” Tracing a synth–gloved hand across Avara’s blood–smeared cheek, Vael added almost absently, “Do you know how brightly you burn?”
Vael laughed at the shudder that passed through Serros at those words.
Chin still painfully gripped in the Karukai’s fingers, Avara told herself to be patient. Coupled with the still occupied Adrenix, with every second that passed, she knew her PV was doing its work. Serros could feel the irritating tickle as already her more superficial wounds began to close and the more serious at least to clot. She would take every second of recovery she could before issuing everything she had for one, probably very final, act.
If all else was to fail, Avara also knew that time for both of them was running out, less than four minutes, by her measure. Her only concern was for K’llan, for whether Serros was triumphant or lay broken, K’llan could still escape.
“Your nya is like an infant sun in an otherwise starless sector of space. I bet your Vosaia, K’llan, is it? I bet she knows, and I would wager her days are
spent waiting to taste you again and again.”
Avara fought the swell of naked fury that the Karukai’s words evoked, taking a truth that was entirely beautiful and still not fully explored between herself and K’llan and twisting it into something ugly.
“I wonder,” Ry’ar Vael whispered, offering the barest brush of those crimson lips across Avara’s bloody mouth before whispering, “What you would taste like, Captain Avara Serros.”
Whatever the Karukai Captain intended next was interrupted by the precisely aimed quintet of bullet fire that raced for the Varda’s side, expertly aimed well away from the Human.
Placing a palm up, Vael reacted instantly, enacting a glowing globe of blue light so dark to be almost black. The Karukai’s attention was torn away from Serros as bullets were spent against her K–Shield. Avara hobbled to her feet and raked her gaze until she found the source. Lieutenant K’llan Z’arr directly across and to the right of her position, Karukai Stingers trained on Captain Vael.
Grabbing both of her knife–hilts from the outer–calves to which they were mag–clipped, Avara thumbed each micro–assembler and flash–forged bowie–blades, launching herself at the still–distracted Varda.
Vael managed to deflect one strike, sending Avara’s blade skittering across the flooring, but the second plunged deep into the right side of the Karukai’s abdomen. Vael threw Avara off, leaving the knife still lodged within her flesh.
Turning to Z’arr, Avara shouted “K’llan, make for the last power–core and trigger the manual release! I’ve got this!”
Offering a single nod in acknowledgement, implicitly trusting in Avara, K’llan shot off towards the final core located near the entrance to the warehouse.
Half laughing, with a muted grunt, Captain Ry’ar Vael removed the knife from her belly, and then began to slowly circle Avara. “You have this?” She teased, a feral gleam in those ruby eyes. “Do you have me, Captain Serros? I wonder?” And even as she spoke the last word, Ry’ar leaped in to attack the Shield Operative, her blows no less powerful or skillfully delivered than Avara’s own.
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