by S E Zbasnik
As the female merc turned to lift up her own weapon, searching for the source of the shots, Taliesin’s arms latched around her neck and he lifted back the helmet exposing the gap of skin. It was quick work to finish her off as he dropped the body beside her leader.
“Ffreeze…” The voice stuttered and Taliesin turned to find himself chest to barrel with the shaking hands of Daniels. His helmet was tossed aside revealing a face far too young to be dabbling in politics. “Drop the…whatever you’re holding.”
Slowly the elf extended his fingers, letting the knife plop into the water. Party-23 blood bloomed off the fallen blade, the water cleansing it. The yellow eyes, trained for over a century to expect death in any form, stared down the barely-into-manhood human. Daniel’s lip quibbled, despite him having every advantage.
“Sin!” Variel shouted, “duck!”
It was not a command the elves used, but he had a rather good idea what she was attempting, and he dropped into the water as a hail of bullets bounced over his head and bit into the NC machine. Daniels dodged out of the way with sparks nipping at his heels. He tried to regain his composure, aiming for the elf who was knees and palms in the bloody water when the air shimmered again. The frozen dryad vanished from sight.
“Oh no,” gurgled from his throat as he backed up towards the sealed door. Variel jumped over the planter, keeping the gun trained on Daniels but not firing.
After offering a hand to Taliesin she nodded towards the tree, “We have to put it out.”
He surveyed the options. Reaching into the pink water, he removed the helmet of the merc whose throat he slit. As he filled the makeshift bucket with water, a low moan emanated from Daniels and the water got a bit warmer around him. The merc’s eyes searched about the room as if he could see into the dimension the dryad’s inhabited, his gun whipping about. He stepped back slowly, trying to make for a door he’d have to unseal first. When his heel caught on the shrapnel of his device, he turned and the gun splashed to the ground. A small “Eep” was all that escaped his mouth as the full fury of a dryad pounced upon him.
Variel turned away, letting Madame Pollen finish off the last one as she helped Taliesin to put out the last of the flames. Acrid smoke stained the ceiling and walls, but most of the fire relapsed as the tree sighed in relief. Variel put an arm momentarily around Taliesin and then she spun about, the gun pointed at the calming form of Madame Pollen. Rage still tinted the rouge around her upper branches, but it lessened as her knots fell upon the two who rescued her. No words rumbled from beneath them, the flames having licked across the dryad’s throat, but she gestured towards the enclave where the mercs dropped their victims.
Nodding to the Madame, Variel splashed through the water to check on the banshee. The pink in her grey hair washed away in the water, startling Variel into fearing she’d been injured in the firefight, but as she lifted her grey head, the eyes fluttered.
“This is going to hurt,” she said as she pulled upon the tape across the banshee’s mouth.
The woman bit back a literal bone shattering scream as her mouth was freed from bondage. She tenderly touched her raw green lips and her depthless eyes turned towards Variel. The captain tried to swallow against the creeping hand of death reflected in them, but the banshee blinked and half smiled, “Thank you.”
Variel rose from her to find another of Madame Pollen’s favorites curled up beside the banshee, his lips bubbling in the water. The human was dressed in the kind of underwear that would be considered revealing in a strip club. Without trying to feel too awkward, she poked at his wrists and found them bound with a locking mechanism she had no hope of breaking. “Sin?” she called to her elf.
He splashed towards her. It was probably her imagination that he was stomping harder than necessary. “Can you pick this?” she asked, gesturing towards the hogtied human.
“Not my type,” he said even as he dropped to his knees.
If Orn had said it he’d have gotten an eye roll or a heavy sigh, but she dropped her hand onto Taliesin’s shoulder and his hand squeezed hers. There were some perks to sleeping with the captain. As he poked through a pocket in his coat, she mused aloud, “I wonder what happened to the troll.”
“Troll?”
“When I came through the Madame offered up her favorite selections. Gary here,” she gestured to the still unconscious man who probably felt the tightening of a pair of elven claws upon his skin even through the blackout, “and a female troll built like a subway station.”
As irony dictates, a horrendous growl burst from the staircase. Four hundred pounds of pure rock-hide fury shattered through the doors, a small stain of merc tartar left behind on the frame. She roared, shaking the leaves in the still smoking tree and stomped once, splashing herself in the face. The water droplets fell into her eyes breaking the blood rage, and the troll’s tiny head spun about the destroyed foyer. She blinked the onyx beads for eyes and was about to rush forward to maim whoever dared to desecrate her home when Madame Pollen appeared before her. The dryad extended a branch around the troll and cooed like a mother comforting a child during a thunderstorm. She still couldn’t speak, but the troll got the message and the shoulders fell, tossing half the corpse of a merc to the water.
Taliesin rose to his feet and wiped his hands off, the body oil from Gary staining his pants, “Done.”
Without watching her lover, Variel flipped Gary over and pulled up an eyelid. His pupils dilated in the flickering light. “Well, he’s not dead.”
“A triumph of the ages,” Sin harrumphed.
She ignored him and tried to lightly tap the human back to the land of the conscious. The banshee approached, her own skeletal fingers drumming against Gary’s skull. After the third melodic tap, the human’s eyes opened of their own accord and he looked into the face of the banshee.
“Lleucu,” he whispered to her, then his effervescent blue eyes turned to Variel and a bright smile filled his face, “My lady…”
The elven snort covered whatever else the human said to Variel as she tried to quash a misplaced blush across her cheeks. Luckily, there were a lot of questions left to answer and she splashed towards the troll still being tended to by the Madame. A chunk of her rock-like hide was split open, the gash flapping free from the back shoulder where a few dozen rounds penetrated. “Is the area secured?” she asked the troll, but it was the Madame who took control of the situation.
Her knots dimmed to a hazy grey as she listened to the heartbeats in her domain, “Yours and my peach drop are the only humans left.”
“Peach drop?” Taliesin mouthed to himself and froze as Variel lifted an eyebrow at him. They were going to have to have more discussions about decorum later.
“Pray, my lady, what has occurred?” the peach drop asked as he rose to chiseled legs with the support of Lleucu.
“You failed to be useful,” Taliesin responded tersely. The venom didn’t pass the Madame or the banshee by. Each well practiced in the art of keeping the act and the emotion of love as separate as colors from whites in the wash, they turned a curious eye to Variel to explain why an elf would give two shits. Especially about a human.
“Party-23, a pro-human group,” she answered tersely, brushing off the stares, “splinter of crazies really. Not Crest associated, at least last I heard.” She was babbling, trying to excuse her entire species for a few bad eggs that just tried to kill them all.
Gary had the decency to gaze down. Gods only knew what his story was to wind up on Whisper — a space station long ago given up to the non-corporeals after it broke from a larger one inhabited by dwarves and humans. The official reasonings were buried in red tape and a history only an elf would care to remember. More than likely, it was just easier to let them detach and get up to their own weird shit alone.
“What are they attempting to accomplish?” Madame Pollen’s raspy voice drifted up from their toes, causing every listener to clear their throat in response. Variel could taste the smoke behind her tongue.
“Frankly, I don’t give a shit what they want,” the captain said, starting to pace in the ankle deep water. Her socks were never gonna dry. “They’re crazy,” she paused and glanced towards the containment cell, a piece of technology rarely used outside of extreme emergencies, “but well prepared.”
The elf picked up her shuttle of thought, “It is disturbing how far they managed to penetrate.” The denizens of the whore house kept their faces straight but Variel cracked a laugh. Taliesin played back his words and that orange cheek bloomed.
Lleucu stepped forward, her grim eyes shielded over with a forest of grey lashes as she apologized, “I’m to blame, Madame. It was my lack of diligence that caused this entire mess.”
The dryad tapped her branch along the banshee’s arm and tutted, “Nonsense, my deathsparrow. You fulfilled your duties admirably. I should have detected the traitorous plans.”
As the two consoled each other and played back all the ways that they could have acted to alter the future, Variel poked into the remains of the terrorists. Taliesin handed her the knife and she got to work, slipping the chips into her pocket as she moved about. Finding Daniels was going to be the hardest.
“What are you contemplating?” Sin whispered to her as he lifted the rifle from the headless leader, then poked the pockets for extra ammo batteries.
Variel didn’t answer at first, her finger hovering over her own PALM as she disconnected the last one. There was a chance they could be monitoring every channel and she’d put her crew in even greater danger, but she needed an eye out there. Before leaving the safety of a reinforceable fort, she had to know if it was worth the risk. Crossing her metaphorical fingers, she called up Ferra, a code building in her head. The tiny holographic display dropped black and the words “Service Unavailable” flashed across it.
“That’s impossible,” she said and tried again. Still it refused to comply, suggesting she try unplugging her hand. “How in the hell is it doing that?”
“A dampening field,” Taliesin suggested.
“Across an entire station? Impossible. And our little visitor was talking to his superior, who clearly wasn’t this guy, not even fifteen minutes ago.”
“We do not know they have taken the entire station.”
Variel slipped her bottom lip under her top teeth in thought, “True. I doubt there’d be enough Party-23 members in the whole galaxy to take the private apartments alone. But a strategic attack and…”
“A seizure of the control deck,” Taliesin continued.
“With a blackout of communications would keep any emergency response in the dark.” Variel blew air threw her cheeks and pinched her nose. “We are royally…”
“Djinn sandwiched?” the elf said, getting a wry grin from her.
“I can’t run into this blind,” she said to herself.
“So you intend to take back the station?” Taliesin folded up his arms, his face as straight as his back.
She shrugged, “Armed with a couple guns, no shields, some badly damaged and condemned armor without any intel on enemy numbers, patterns, or drop zones. Sure, why not? Not like I had anything else planned today.”
He seemed to sense the stress cracking around her words, and put one of his still soggy hands around the back of her neck. She dropped her head and leaned partially into his chest, then mentally chastised herself for it. Still, it felt nice to give into despair in a pair of warm arms for a few seconds. As she brought her left hand up to pull him in for a dangerous hug, a flashing red light caught her.
“Yes!” Variel shouted as she pressed on her PALM, “Oh gods, Orn. I could kiss your hairy backside right now!”
“I’ll make certain to tell him,” Sin said, any jealousy erased with the hilarity of the situation.
“That stupid game, it doesn’t run on any of the comm channels.” She called up her obnoxious character, a five color square with a sprouting of red hair, and ordered it to make another step. As she did she pushed open the text box and typed: Orn, r u all right.
Not bothering with proper grammar or punctuation she hit send, and turned up from her hand to Taliesin. He raised a shoulder and said, “Now it rests upon the length of time it takes him…”
A flash and beep ended the elf’s sentence, and Variel called up her game board. Orn’s octagon sporting a twin set of sideburn braids had moved another step, but his message flashed: Alive but pissed. Explosion. With B
“B?” Variel asked aloud, then picked a move and typed quickly: B, whos b.
As soon as she hit send, another message returned with a new move: rena. Gods, slow down. I cant type fast.
She looked at Taliesin, who collapsed his fist into his palm, possibly damaging his own chip. “Explosion? Is she…” he started, but Variel was already typing: Is Brena Alright?
Orn answered back: What’d I already say? Fine. Terrifying, but fine. Where are you?
Variel turned back towards the still huddled up pleasure palace staff. Gods, she was never going to live this one down: The P&S, w/ Taliesin.
She hit send and pinched her index finger waiting for the inevitable backlash of innuendo. Closing her eyes, she jabbed the flashing button and was greeted by the most unexpected response: Good, you two get down here and make the bastards pay.
(V) Where r u?
(O) Some goblin jewelry shop. Dalbo or whatever.
(V) Orn I need directions
(O) Look for a huge explosion. We’re in the store by that. Lots of shiny shit.
(V) Ur not helping
The game paused as the dwarf probably weighed his response. Taliesin closed his eyes and massaged them with his fingers as he muttered, “I fear he is asking my sister if we share a mental twin connection.”
“Do you?”
The hand dropped and he looked at her with a twist of horror across the left side of his face, “That would be very awkward at times.”
Her hand flashed red and a set of numbers appeared as the Octagon inched closer to the prize: 15 35 6 109. Hope that means something to you.
Variel looked at Taliesin as he entered the coordinates into his own hand and he nodded his head. “They are a deck down where I abandoned the dwarf.” Then he sighed, “Very close. Good.”
(V) Got it. R U safe?
(O) Don’t expect any more statues to explode.
The captain looked down at the terrorist’s body and asked it aloud, “What the hell were you doing?” Then she typed to Orn: It wasnt an accident. Party 23
He succinctly responded with: Fuck
Variel typed quickly without watching her move count: Armored and armed with old NP-35s. POS
(O) What’s POS mean?
(V) Piece of shit
(O) Right, okay. Still full of bullets I assume.
(V) Yeah. Oh and Orn one more important bit.
(O) What?
(V) At the top of the armor on the left shoulder there is a set of gas tubes. If you slit them then they will
And she hit the end of the word limit. Poking send, she hoped to finish with “explode” but her hand flashed in rage with each tap of her finger. Her eyes glanced to the top where “Out of moves. Wait 24 hours or pay for an upgrade” flashed.
“Crap, crap, son of a centaur’s shit,” she cursed at the damn thing and closed her hand. “Well, hopefully they’ll figure it out.”
“What shall we do with the shaken here?” Taliesin asked, showing a moment’s concern for the Madame and the rest. Probably not as much for Gary.
Variel sighed as her eyes swept over the broken bodies and still ruptured water pipes. “Listen up, everyone,” her voice echoed through the hall. “To stand a chance we have to head out, but I can help you set up fortifications. We’ll leave you with all but one of the guns and as much ammo as we can spare.”
“And a troll,” Taliesin said. Even his stalwart stomach turned at the carnage she caused.
The human and banshee began to mumble, a trembling to their legs, but Madame Pollen undulated with p
urpose towards Variel and raised her trunk high, “My dear, we put our faith in your courage and advice.”
Variel blinked and nodded, “Right, okay, good. Well, my first advice is to yank up that heavy mahogany desk and prop it against the door. Build that fortification up with all your extra furniture.”
As the troll scurried off, the banshee braying about the loss of her desk, Variel leaned into Taliesin and said, “Unbuckle as much of the salvageable armor as you can find.”
“Why?”
“I think we’re gonna need it.”
CHAPTER TEN
The darkness shuddered as the engineer wiggled something deathly sharp near his top horn. Monde tried to not yelp for the third time as Ferra shouted in her thick colonial accent. The others didn’t notice it as much, but his generic Orc translator couldn’t pick up half of her words when she was mad, which only made her more angry.
“Hold steady,” she said grabbing onto his wrist, her fingers failing to meet around as she slammed it into the panel beside her face. The emergency lantern tipped and cast a searing ray into his eyes, which he shielded by closing his second lids.
“Will this take much longer?” Monde asked, weariness from the half hour of her ordering him around like one of WEST’s bots taking its toll. The computer sat silent, as if it were pouting. The only interaction they got was a “Told you so” written on the walls in chalk. It was a wonder where it managed to get chalk in the first place.
“It will take as long as it fucking takes,” Ferra said as she yanked at something, the sparking wire dipping close to his exposed head. Monde didn’t move. He knew the tiny elf would just grab his arm and throw it back again as if he were a kald fly. “None of this makes any damn sense,” she said to herself. “WEST!”