What was in that stim?
Her gaze was drawn to the ceiling, where one of the—
Ezeroc. The fucking bugs have a name, and it’s Ezeroc.
—Ezeroc was clawing through, scuttling to get the drop on Kohl. Grace pushed off from her crouch into a sprint, sword held low and ready. The insect—
Definitely an insect. Fucking bugs.
—dropped from the ceiling as she got there, landing about a meter from Kohl’s back. Her sword snicked out, slicing through the Ezeroc’s rear legs, drawing a keen from the creature. It turned to her, and that right there made her pause. Because she was standing in front of an honest to God alien, a crawling thing from another world, and it had teeth, and claws, and stood above her at well over 2 meters in height. It was favoring the injured legs — so you fuckers feel pain, huh? — and rearing up and back on the six multi-jointed legs it stood on.
Rearing up to strike.
When Grace had learned kendo, it had been style and forms, too slow for any real use on the street. Iaido had been the natural step, a pure form of focus and awareness. The problem with both is that they were designed for fighting people. People had intent, and she could feel that. It let her move faster, a step ahead at all times. This thing had no intent she could feel.
GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE!
Oh no you don’t. She wouldn’t let something get one over on her. Not again. Never again.
She spun as it crashed its weight down where she was standing, falling back on those old forms. Iaido was beauty, and kendo was purpose, and her feet moved through the forms like she was still in the dojo, learning hand-me-down tricks from her sensei. Keep moving. Her sword was a part of her, an extension of her will, and she turned and put it through the left-side legs of the Ezeroc. It keened again, crashing to the ground, and her sword swung like a thing with purpose of its own to slash through the creature’s fore claws.
The remaining legs drummed on the ground, a greenish scum oozing from the cuts. Kohl had turned around by this time, taken in the scene, and stepped forward that remaining meter distance. The rotary laser whirred around to his back, and he put two hands around the thing’s neck — is that a neck? — and brought his visored head in for a headbutt. There was a crunch of chitin and teeth, and Kohl pushed the thing aside to flail on the ground. He gave Grace a glance, expression invisible behind his mask, then said, “You’re all right, Gushiken.”
“Just all right?” she said.
“Of the two espers here,” said Kohl, “you’re the one that hasn’t tried to kill me. That Penn, though.” He paused, frowning. “I mean, I don’t know he’s an esper. But it fits. Knows too much. Fucker. Let’s go, yeah?”
Seriously. What was in that stim? Never mind that Kohl thought she was an esper — Nate must have said something while she was opening the doors. The truth was something different, but explaining that was hard, and she never seemed to get the time before someone tried to shoot her, or open her skull, or put her in a jail that even time forgot about. The stim got past all that. Sure, something to get the body moving when it was weak. Something to speed up the heart, the reactions, to dull the pain and the fear. But a little something else, to bond soldiers to each other when the end was near? Had to be. Grace had heard about psychotropics like that, but never felt them. A throwback like Kohl should pound her skull through the floor, but here he was, treating her like one of the team.
You’re not, though. Keep your distance. You’re not with them.
Now, she was lying to herself.
• • •
The light was bright and hard and oppressive, everything taking on too much shine. This damn gravity was another level of bullshit, trying to leech the strength from her limbs, making her slow to move. Making it hard to fight.
The Ezeroc were everywhere.
The four of them came out of the administration center in a clump, weapons pointed out, and faced a ring of insect forms. All except Penn, who was still without a weapon. The man was scrabbling at a helmet, trying to juggle it into place in a hurry, his fingers trembling with anxiety and fear/fear/fear. Grace flicked green ichor from her blade, feeling the sweat on her face despite the cool of the helmet, and said, “Well, now it’s a party.”
Nate gave her a glance and a series of emotions in rapid succession, a mixture of fear/trust/distrust/family/anger/betrayal before he spoke. “We’ve just got to make the spaceport. The dropship. Then we’re good.”
“Uh,” said Kohl, eyes on the skies above.
Grace followed his gaze, saw the trails of fire through the atmosphere. The pinprick bloom of an explosion, something made tiny to her eyes by distance. Something was going on in space, something bad, and the remains of whatever that was were raining through the atmosphere. It’d be suicide to take off. Trying to fly through a sky full of burning rocks was only for the criminally insane.
Nate was tapping at his comm while the Ezeroc chittered at a distance. Unmoving. Grace said, “What are they waiting for?”
Together.
She shook her head to clear it while Nate spoke to the comm. “Tyche, this is Nate. Tyche, there’s fireworks going on up there. Tell me a story.”
No response.
Penn cleared his throat, voice muffled by the helmet. Nate turned to him and said, “Penn? Let me loop you in on our comms channel.” He tapped at his wrist controls.
Penn’s voice came through bright and clear. “The Ezeroc. They’re jamming signals. It’s what they’ve been doing since they came into orbit. But it’s not coming from the asteroid.”
Nate was looking at Penn like he was crazy, but Grace took a step forward. “Orbit?” she said. “There’s no ships out there. Only the Gladiator.”
“The Gladiator is what we call too little, too late,” said Penn. His shoulders were still square, but Grace wondered how long that could last in the face of all the insects ringing them. “Aliens do not build like we do, Grace.”
“Hey,” said Grace. “How do you know my—”
“You said asteroid,” said Nate. “The asteroid is their ship?”
“It is,” said Penn. “We need to move, Captain. I don’t know what they’re waiting for, but it can’t be good.”
Grace.
Grace whirled, but there was nothing there. The Ezeroc still stood around them, a safe 20 meter distance, not getting closer, not getting farther.
“You’re saying,” said Nate, “that their ship is an asteroid the size of a moon?”
“It perplexed us at first too,” said Penn. “It’s why I need to get this data sliver off this world. We need to let the Republic know what kind of enemy they face. The Gladiator didn’t stand a chance. After they cored the hull and took the crew—”
“Hold up,” said Kohl. “What do you mean, ’took the crew?’”
Grace.
TOGETHER.
“Fuck this,” said Grace. She walked towards the spaceport, her sword held in an angry hand. “You guys can talk this out. I’m getting off this rock.”
She was seeing shimmers in the air around — or inside — the Ezeroc. Silhouettes. Shapes, forms, like the outlines of people. She blinked but they images were still there. One of them in front of her reached out a hand towards her, ghostly and insubstantial.
Grace.
Together.
Grace Grace Grace!
Oh my God. She shook her head, feeling sick. She looked back at Penn. “They’re … they used to be people,” she said. “They’re not aliens. They’re people!”
“Only at a carbon level,” said Penn. “They haven’t been people for a long time. The Ezeroc … well, they need the calories.”
“We’re leaving,” said Nate, “and we’re leaving now. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t feel like becoming someone else’s lunch.” He tossed a look at Kohl. “October? Make a path, and make it now.”
Kohl shrugged, pointed the rotary laser, and pulled the trigger. Insects leapt out of the way, scrambling for the walls,
windows, rooftops. Kohl was lumbering down the street, laser fire lighting his way. Nate followed, covering his back, blaster picking out targets, Ezeroc getting too close. Grace followed, as did Penn.
“It’s illegal, what you are,” said Penn. Like he knew.
“Let’s talk later,” said Grace, “when there’s nothing but humans, yeah?”
“We could use someone like you,” said Penn. His eyes were on Kohl and Nate as Grace’s crew mates made a path. “But we’d need … an understanding.”
Grace felt the traitor clutch of hope in her chest. You weren’t with this crew anyway. You don’t need them. You need to be free of them. She wanted to say something to Penn, and she wanted to choke down that feeling at the same time. What was happening to her?
An Ezeroc scrambled toward them from the shelter of a crashed car, too close and too quick for Nate’s blaster to pick it off. It was reaching for Penn, and Grace’s sword moved in her hand before she had a chance to think about it. The blade sheared the two fore claws off in quick succession, and she spun the steel in the air to drive it back. It hissed at her, then scuttled away.
Penn was at her back, hand on her shoulder. “Good,” he said. “Good.”
Grace screwed her eyes shut. I hope you know what you’re doing.
But she had no idea. Not anymore.
• • •
“Port is just around the corner,” said Nate, voice clear over the comm. “I’m running low on batteries here.”
“I’m fine,” said Kohl, his voice sounding anything but fine. It sounded weak and clotted, like milk curdled in the sun. His tone made Grace look, and she saw the big man pause firing his laser. Pause, and then just let it fall. The automount pulled it to his back, and the motion caused Kohl to stumble and sway.
“Kohl?” said Nate. “October, talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” said Kohl, and then stretched himself face-first on the street in a clatter of armor.
Grace felt real fear then. Not because Kohl was dead, because he wasn’t. She’d feel it if his soul left his body. No, none of that. She felt fear because Kohl had been doing all of the work.
A hush descended over the street. Grace looked up, saw the Ezeroc looking out from behind makeshift barricades of vehicles, signage, store windows. For all that Kohl had cut a path, killing hundreds of them, there were thousands left. Thousands.
Grace Grace Grace Grace Grace!
Together, Grace.
All the people of Absalom Delta. All the Marines and flight crew of the Gladiator. Oh, she knew what the Ravana had been running from now. She knew what had made them hack their own ship to make a jump a little too far, a little too fast. The Ravana’s crew had figured if they were going to die, they’d die as a warning: there be dragons.
There was a hiss, rising in volume.
“Nate,” said Grace. “Nate.”
“I know,” he said, trying to get Kohl up.
“Nate,” she said. “We have to go.”
“I know!” he said, pulling at the clamps on Kohl’s automount.
“He’s gone, Nate,” she said. It wasn’t true, but Nate didn’t know that. Nate was now their ticket out of here. A good shot, maybe good enough to get them to the dropship. She couldn’t take the Ezeroc on the blade. There were too many.
He glared at her. “I don’t care,” he said. “We don’t leave people behind.”
She didn’t know what we he was referring to. Grace was sure that Kohl would have left them behind in a hopeless situation. El would have set the drives to burn hard for a distant system and be sipping Mai Tais under the haze of a different sun. Hope might have stayed, but she was young, and stupid, and too full of her namesake to survive out here on the edge of space. It was some other we, a group of people who weren’t here anymore. They sure as shit hadn’t stayed to help him, because otherwise he wouldn’t even be here.
There was a clank and the rotary laser fell free. Nate hissed as he burned his hand on the weapon, then tried to lift Kohl. He groaned, then dropped the man in a clanking pile. “Too heavy,” he said. “Damn this gravity.”
Okay, so he won't leave Kohl. “Move,” she said, sword out.
“What are you going to do?” he said, not moving.
Her sword licked out, and Nate flinched, but her strike wasn’t at him. The blade touched Kohl’s body here and here and here, and his armor popped open in a hiss of broken seals. His slumped form was revealed, the fruit inside a harsh rind revealed. “Now,” said Grace. “We have to go.”
As if in agreement there was a rising hiss from the Ezeroc. Nate looked at her. “Yeah, you got it.” He shouldered Kohl, still wincing, and started a heavy-footed run. Grace followed, the insects crawling along behind them, behind Penn. Hungry. Watchful. Like they were herding them, rather than hunting them.
Herding. Now there’s an unpleasant thought. Why would the insects be doing that?
She almost ran into Nate, he stopped so fast. Grace looked ahead, her eyes tracking the empty street. She saw the broken-down barricade of the spaceport, then the smoking remains of their dropship, barely recognizable as a machine, fire licking out from the shattered hull, pieces of engine and control systems and ablative shielding strewn about in a 50 meter radius.
“Well, shit,” she said. “The fucking bugs destroyed our dropship.”
“Penn,” said Nate, wheezing under the load of Kohl. “We need another ride. Where on this planet can we get one?”
“Nowhere,” said Penn, his face and his voice lost. For once, his shoulders weren’t so perfect square. And not coincidentally, Grace was not pleased to be here to see that.
“There’s got to be something,” said Nate.
“There’s nothing,” said Penn.
Nate dropped Kohl to the ground, pulling out his blaster. “Then we fight,” he said.
“Nate,” said Grace. “There’s so many of them.”
He gave her a little lopsided smile. “That’s when you’ve got to burn the brightest, Grace,” he said. “When the darkness comes down to snatch you away.” He looked at the blaster in his hand, trust/distrust/like/anger/betrayal/trust coming off him. “If it comes to it, I won’t let them take you.”
“Cover me,” said Penn. He jogged back the way they came. Towards Kohl’s fallen rotary laser. He hefted it, making it look like hard work. “Captain,” he said to Nate, “if they try to take me, you shoot me down. Do you understand?”
“You know,” said Nate, “I was going to shoot you down for the hell of it.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” said Penn. They backed towards each other. Three souls, around Kohl’s slumped body. Three against a thousand, against ten thousand. Grace had been running for so long, it felt good to stop. To know this was the end. She flicked gore and slime from her blade.
The Ezeroc drew closer. The air was turning orange from the burning of so many rocks in the atmosphere, and Grace felt like it was getting hotter. It could have just been her imagination. It didn’t matter, because death would take her soon enough, by fire or by claw it didn’t matter.
One of the bugs rushed at her, and she let her sword do the talking. The blade rang hard against chitin, not biting deep, and Grace felt — well, fucking surprised. This sword had been with her for as long as she was tall enough to hold it. She knew this blade, and it knew her. It always cut. It was ever sharp. The Ezeroc hissed at her — fucker’s probably surprised too — then made to lunge. She swung again, and this time the sword bit.
Bit, and stuck.
Then with a sound of metal crying, the blade broke. Grace stumbled back, the hilt of her sword and a mere foot of blade left in her hand. She looked at it, then at the Ezeroc, and prepared to die.
There was a flash, and another, and plasma bit into the creature. Chunks exploded off it and it burst into flame, driven back. By Nate. By his blaster. He should have just left me to die. He knows it. I know it. And still.
Which we did he mean?
Penn was firi
ng the rotary laser, straining under the weight of the weapon. Straining, until the weapon clicked down, its battery spent, and with it, the last of their hope. Grace looked down at her broken sword, then past that to Kohl on the ground. Then to Kohl’s belt, with his pouch of toys.
You got another one of those?
Maybe.
She dropped to her knees, ripping open Kohl’s pouch. Three syringes tumbled free into her hand. She pulled the caps off them, held them up in a fist, and said, “Sorry, Kohl.” Then she slammed them into his body, ramming the plungers home.
One heartbeat, two. And then Kohl was on his feet, eyes wide, cords in his neck straining, a silent scream opening his mouth into a rictus. He looked around, took in the situation, then picked up a piece of concrete connected to rebar. He hefted it. An Ezeroc came forward, and Kohl roared, swinging the makeshift club in an arc. It smashed the Ezeroc’s head to a pulp, and Kohl kept swinging until there was nothing left but slime and chunks.
He looked back at Nate, then Penn, and Grace, like he didn’t know them.
The Ezeroc hissed. Kohl back up and crazy was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. They would die, but slower. Grace knew it.
Grace.
Now we can be together.
That’s when the insects came for them. All of them, at once.
The sky broke open with a thunder, the sound the rage of gods, a flash of fire and light. Grace fell to her knees, shielding her helmeted head with her hands. She looked up through her fingers, saw an eagle’s fury bright in the sky, fusion fire burning in a wide braking arc as the Tyche screamed its defiance above them. PDC cannons were out from the hull, their rage and fury roaring at the Ezeroc. The ship had blasted over them, and the pilot — it must have been El — already turning it around as fusion drives turned buildings into pyres. The Tyche pulled back to hover over them, rotating in a slow circle as the PDCs cleared the Ezeroc away, weapons designed for space warfare hammering the street and buildings to powder with a noise and violence that shook the air from Grace’s lungs even through the suit. The Tyche was dropping tungsten like burning, metal rain.
Tyche's Flight (Tyche's Journey Book 1) Page 18