Chapter Seven
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s not me. Please forgive me. I love you all.”
–Squint’s final message, sent to all of his friends’ MODACs.
Blue teetered, staring over at Felix in shock.
“It wasn’t me! It was the arm!” Felix shouted.
Blue took a staggering step towards his fellow Maur, only to drop down to a knee and cough up blood. Sybil cried out in protest, but she was too busy writhing on the ground in pain to do anything.
Squint squatted down in front of Blue. “Uh oh, kitty. You don’t look so good.”
Duncan raised his pistols up and pointed them at Squint. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”
Squint tilted his head curiously. “What are you waiting for? Shoot him. Go on. I think I’ll take you next. Such spirit, Lieutenant Duncan North, serial number 05578-23. I wonder which haunts you more. The death of your squad or the death of your wife?”
“Shut the fuck up. Who are you.”
Felix’s arm came around and leveled babydoll right at Duncan’s face.
Duncan shifted his grip, pointing one gun at Felix and the other at Squint.
Sybil was sobbing, muttering, “Beware, beware, beware…”
Blue sagged against his shield and swallowed, trying to keep himself together.
Squint scooped up a bit of Blue’s blood from off the ground and licked his finger clean. “Oh this part never gets old. To answer your question, I have gone by many names over the many eras of my long, long existence. Let’s go with… Grimnir. Always been partial to that one.”
“You’re a Nethrian?”
“Clever boy. You want a prize?”
“Sure. All my friends walk out of here alive.”
Squint clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Aww, how sweet. No, I’m afraid they don’t. You just might, though. I’ve been looking for someone with enough strength to carry me out of here. Six hundred and fifty three attempts. Zero successes. This crude metallic shell will sustain me for a bit longer, but I need something stronger. You think you’ve got what it takes, Deadeye?”
Duncan fired one round, ruining Felix’s cybernetic arm.
Felix immediately caught his rifle with his good arm and leveled it at Squint.
“Two on one, fucker,” Felix hissed.
Squint shook his head. “You’re slower than you look. Here. Let’s up the stakes.”
A deep rumbling shook the asteroid.
Squint grinned. “Uh oh. Seems like your dear friend Squint left a back door open in the Maur corvette. I’ve got control of her guns, her engines, her shields. Even her self destruct. How much damage do you think this hunk of rock can weather before we’re all buried here?”
“I thought you wanted out,” Duncan reasoned.
Squint shrugged. “I’ll get out eventually. Today, tomorrow, next millenia, three eons hence, it really doesn’t matter. This galaxy’s circling the drain anyway and I’ve been so fucking bored. I want to have a little fun. Live a little. Maybe kill a few people for old time’s sake. What do you say? Feel like dying?”
Felix took a step forward and Squint locked all three of his eyes onto him.
“Easy there, kitty. You kill this one, that self destruct starts up. Twenty minutes till we’re all smoked. Then I’ll take over your partner here and make him kill the rest of you. Oooh, or maybe I’ll take the big guy here for a spin. Do you think you could kill him, Felix? Just look at those big beautiful blue eyes. Such a shame to waste such a handsome fellow, don’t you think?”
Felix fired, blowing Squint’s skull to pieces and silencing Grimnir.
He looked to Duncan, who affixed him with a look he’d never seen on the Terran’s face before. Gone was the cheery disposition that had defined the man’s expression for the entire time he’d known him. In its place was a mask of cold steel.
Felix never saw the muzzle flash that claimed his life.
He was dead before his body hit the ground.
-
Sybil was curled into the fetal position, her breaths coming out fast and shallow, and her head pounding like a sublight engine with a faulty timer. But when she saw—through the tears clouding her vision—Felix drop to the ground beside her with a hole right between his eyes, some part of her snapped.
Enough!
The cacophony of voices dispersed, and an echoing silence was all that remained in their wake, leaving her with only a short window of clarity.
Gunner, dead.
Squint, dead.
Felix, dead.
Blue, damn near dead.
Duncan… possessed.
The voices swelled back up, racing back towards her from all directions and threatening to overwhelm her once more.
No.
Sybil shot to her feet and called upon her psionic gift; slamming everything she had into a freezing blast that caught Duncan. He had enough time to turn on her and fire two shots. The kinetic slug froze less than a meter from the tip of his barrel, but the blaster bolt was too hot for her cryokinesis powers. She took the shot right in her gut but refused to let it stop her.
When Duncan, or Grimnir or whoever the fuck it was in there now, was a solid block of ice, Sybil rushed to Blue’s side and used her power to freeze his open wound.
The big Maur dropped his shield into the rocks and sucked down a deep lungful of air.
“Cold,” he commented quietly, lifting a hand to his side.
“It’s the best I can do for now. Let’s get you to the Auto-Doc before you bleed out.”
“What about Duncan?” the big guy demanded.
“Duncan’s gone. They all are. We need to move!” Sybil swore.
Blue stared around at the bodies of their crew and shook his head. “Fucking Nethrians.”
“Amen to that. Now let’s move!”
Blue paused only long enough to scoop the kret-loaded MODAC from Squint’s hand before he staggered after Sybil. Even with his long gait and Maur strength, he couldn’t keep up with her. She was running from those bodies, those voices, that thing in the orb who possessed her friends one by one. She was running towards the Shrike, and the salvation it offered. She wasn’t going to stop for anything.
The minutes ticked by as they ran. Back up out of the asteroid. Through the corvette. Back through the frigate. All the way to the Shrike and back up the ramp and down the corridor to the med bay.
Blue collapsed atop the Auto-Doc, barely breathing. The ice in his wound had turned red and begun to melt. Sybil got him flat on his back on the machine and strapped him down, slapping the green ON button and leaving it to its work as she sprinted across the hall to the cockpit. There was no relief in sitting back in her chair. No sense of calm taking up the controls and spooling up the engines. No great peace settled across her shoulders as she dusted off and jetted them out of the hangar at Minus One. As close to lightspeed as any sublight engine could muster. If it took nine minutes for light to travel from Sol to Earth, the Shrike could make that trip in twelve minutes. That was as fast as it got without an FTL drive or a jump gate.
An explosion lit up her rear sensors precisely thirteen seconds out from the hangar. If they’d slowed for anything, or if she’d taken longer to get Blue into the Auto-Doc, they’d have all died on that asteroid.
At last the voices quieted.
Sybil guided her ship towards the jump gate with tears in her eyes and punched in a flight path for the autopilot. It would be a five day journey even at her current pace, and she didn’t want to push the Shrike that hard.
Felix, dead. Duncan, frozen. Gunner, dead. Squint, dead. Blue, locked in the Auto-Doc.
Sybil set her face in her hands and just sobbed.
When the pain came to be too much, she reached down to probe the blaster burn on her stomach. Her hand came away red. Panic swelled in her chest. But she forced herself to calm down. One thing at a time. There was a med kit over by the cockpit door.
She got up. She moved to the door, ignoring the pain. Found the burn patch and applied it. She had to rip off her armor and peel herself out of her sticky sweat-stained clothes to do it, but modesty didn’t matter one iota to her. The only other occupant of the Shrike was Blue, and on top of being locked in surgery he was also gay. Having her tits out was just about the last concern on her mind as she patched up the blaster bolt wound on her abdomen.
Gonna leave a nasty scar. Guess bikinis are out.
Sybil laughed out loud as the thought crossed her mind.
“All my friends are dead and you think I give a shit about bikinis?” she asked herself. “Get a grip, girl. You’re losing it.”
Sybil pulled a shirt over her head and sat back down in the pilot’s chair and let out a deep breath, trying not to burst into tears again. It was a very, painfully narrow thing, but she managed to keep her composure.
A hand came to rest gently on her shoulder.
Beware!
She looked up into a mismatched set of eyes. One dead white, the other menacing red.
“Uh oh, princess. Looks like somebody forgot to lock the hatches before takeoff. Oops.”
Sybil never saw the muzzle flash that killed her.
-
Deadeye removed the corpse from the pilot’s chair and sat down in her place, checking her instruments and throttling back down to Minus Two. Still a respectable speed, but he would need time to make alterations. This vessel, the one known as Duncan North, needed a few upgrades before it could host him long-term. He would take his time and return to the larger galaxy only after he had adjusted.
Fuck you, you piece of shit!
Grimnir smiled.
“Hush now, Duncan. You’ve had a good run. It’s my turn now. Watch. Learn.” Grimnir reached down and placed a hand over Sybil’s chest. The kinetic slug he’d lodged in the hybrid woman’s heart dissolved, and the flesh reknit itself according to his command.
Her eyes flashed open and she breathed once more, looking up at him in horror.
She tried to use her powers on him, but he shook his head and blew her a kiss, freezing her solid with her own powers. They were his now. Just as Squint’s abilities with datastreams were his. Just as Nolan’s knowledge of the inner workings of the Great Houses were. Or the biokin powers of one Nicole Woods, whom he had slain some time ago.
Everything he killed, he absorbed and grew stronger. Every life he took he sacrificed to his own name. It had been a long time since he strode through the galaxy, and now he was free at last. Free to wander where he liked and kill whomever he pleased.
“Now this is where the fun begins,” Grimnir said quietly.
The End?