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16:01, 3.13.2391 Official CCA Time
Fen Habbanis, 28.54 degrees W by 81.31 degrees N
Hexer had faded in and out of consciousness many times over the last few hours. It was hard to keep track of exactly what was happening anymore. There were scraps of conversations, half remembered things that Trabb said to him. Word of the ship arriving soon, two hours or so since the last time he'd been coherently awake.
At one point, he realized it was dusk as the light bleeding in through the windows had turned from its normal sickly yellow to a burning orange. The voices from the next room carried over, and he struggled to focus and sit up.
Hrask and Trabb were standing together near a terminal, the one that was wired to a sensor tower outside.
“Are you sure it’s this Kenshar?”
“Positive. The shuttle transponder matches. He’s dealt with me personally more often than not these last few months. I have gone to him many times for equipment, resources, and other goods I needed smuggled onto the world. However, my credit has run dry, and the Fell Throne is paying well for my capture… no doubt a business opportunity for the Syndicate, and a man like Kenshar.”
“Would he come out all this way and try to snatch you up personally?”
“He enjoys dirtying his hands.”
“Some friend he is.”
“Kenshar is the finest friend that money can buy.” Hrask scoffed. “But his loyalty ends there. You’re lucky your culture does not value such a thing.”
“Guess so.” She chuckled. “Maybe I’ll say hello.”
“I am not sure I would suggest that.”
“It'll be a long-distance greeting.”
Hexer watched Trabb as she stepped out of the back room and into the kitchen where the CCA survivors had set up their gear. Hrask ponderously followed her out. She reentered with a hardcase under one arm. It was littered with warnings ranging from ‘fragile’ to ‘radioactive’. Hexer recognized it as one of the particle projectile cannons they had packed away with them for the pickup. A large, shoulder mounted cannon with a seperate nuclear battery, it’d blow a hole in anything small enough to fly through the atmosphere of a planet. It was the same type of weapon that had downed Hexer’s dropship.
“How long have you had that?” Hrask raised his brow.
“Salvaged from the wreck." Trabb grinned as she began connecting the weapon to its battery via thick cables. "Not a chance I was going to let the Syndicate grab it."
“You- you brought something that dangerous with you?” Hrask looked concerned.
“We had to be ready for anything.”
She was already flipping switches on the side of the weapon. A dangerous hum filled the entire room as the PPC powered up, and Hrask seemed keenly aware that the Lumirian was holding enough power to reduce him to ashes and wash his clinic in nuclear fire. The sheer audacity of Hexer's people tended to flabbergast other species.
“How long until Kenshar gets here?”
“F-four minutes.”
“I’ll extend that. Felat, Parmsi.” She snapped her fingers at the marines. “Take up positions in the eastern rubble and get ready for survivors to come this way. I’ll be up top.”
“Yes, sir!”
Her two remaining soldiers rushed out the door with rifles in hand as Trabb scrambled up a rusted ladder to the roof. This left Hexer alone with Hrask. The injured Lumirian silently watched the huge lizard as he lingered in the center of the room, looking out the shuttered windows. Slowly he turned towards Hexer.
“I feel obligated to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I have angered these men, and they’ve brought harm to you because of me.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Perhaps.” His golden eyes drifted down to Hexer’s leg as he stepped up.
“You seem to be doing well. Your injuries have stabilized, though you have lost a considerable amount of blood. You may need another flash cloned transfusion soon.”
He reached down and picked up some type of medical scanner that Hexer didn’t recognize, and began analyzing the readings from the biobed. A loud electrical bang shook the clinic as Trabb fired her PPC. Disturbed dust drifted from the ceiling and a distant, booming echo carried itself across the fields of debris around them. Hexer knew that sound, it was the last thing he'd heard back when he had two working eyes and a pair of legs.
Trabb slid down, her massive gun smoking profusely with parts of it glowing red hot.
“Got that bastard’s zip shuttle. With any luck he’s dead.”
“I have doubts…" Hrask winced. "We must remain cautious until your ship arrives.”
“How’s the pilot?” She tossed the spent PPC into the corner of the room where it clattered across the ground near the MRI machine.
“Not critical. He needs time to recover and some more treatment, but he will survive.”
“Hmm, good, real stubborn bastard. I like that.”
“Trabb.” Hrask turned to her. “If I do not make it out. Take this.” He handed her something small. “A duplicate of the data on the server. Though I still suspect your people want the real one I carry.”
“I fully intend on getting you and that thing off world. I didn’t come all this way to fail this mission.” She looked him up and down. “Even if what I bring back is not what I expected.”
“She just doesn't want to get chewed out for this dam-burst of a mission.” Hexer chuckled.
“Oh you’re well enough to snark me?” Trabb walked up and patted his bandaged leg, causing Hexer to grimace in discomfort. The pain was dulled, but he could feel parts of himself rubbing against things that they shouldn't.
"Let him rest." Hrask stated firmly. Both Trabb and Hexer obeyed, as the pilot felt his head hit the pillow and his dreary grasp on consciousness loosened. The weakening orange rays of the setting sun were his only clear grasp of time.
Hexer woke to the sound of Lumirian railguns, then a pair of loud crashes that sounded like a lightning bolt shattering glass. Then, beyond the walls of the clinic, there was a horrid, ear-piercing scream that rattled Hexer worse than gunfire.
“YEAAAGH AAAAAH! HELP HELP I- AUUUAAAGH AAAAHUGH Huggh…!”
“What the fuck was that…?” He whispered, the hoarse sounds of torment fading in intensity as the Lumirian making them screamed himself to exhaustion. There was a second sound out there he realized, something heavy, wet and raspy. It also dwindled into silence.
“I’m not sure.” Hrask gritted his teeth.
“Jirhal needles.” A voice called from the outside. It was laconic and playful, but loud enough to carry across the yard into the clinic. “Very nasty, very sharp. They explode after impact, letting out thousands of tiny, barbed micro-flechettes. They’re designed to incapacitate through severe pain. A movement as subtle as breathing is enough to shred the flesh they touch and move the splinters deeper into tissue. One of your men has one of those needles through his gut. He may live, despite desiring otherwise at the moment. I shot the other man in the neck.”
"Kenshar." Hrask hissed.
“Bastard…” Trabb spit it out under her breath, scuttling across the floor into cover behind a fridge. The fire was in her eyes. Slowly Hexer picked up the pistol that rested at his side and weakly aimed it towards the door.
“We can’t stay here…” Hexer whispered, unable to rise on his own. But where would they go?
“You don’t want to do this, Kenshar.” Hrask called out.
“You don’t know what I want, my dear, hydrocarbon-laden friend.” The voice laughed back.
Hrask raised his gun to the door as one set of footfalls approached. So he really was coming himself. Hexer wasn’t sure what to expect, he wasn’t sure what he could do. A shadow moved across the door’s threshold, then he stepped in, rifle slung over his back, smiling. Hexer had never seen a creature like Kenshar before. Though, maybe creature was the wrong word.
Kenshar, clad in a white duster, looked mammalian and mechanical all at once. It was tall and thin, and bore the hallmarks of something vulpine with the long snout and ears, though they were made of black metal. Ragged silver fur clung to areas of his face atop some type of artificial skin that granted expressiveness to his eyes and framed his jaw in a fuzzy mane of fur. He resembled something that had been taxidermied, the aging hide of a long dead beast falling away to reveal the metal armature that resided just beneath the skin.
A bass filled electrical snap rocked the air, and maintained itself with a rhythmic thudding that rattled the entire room as gunfire ignited the clinic. Kenshar simply raised his hand. Trabb’s auto-rail loosed its whole drum and kicked up dust all around the Orassian as the slugs ricocheted violently off a nearly invisible teal barrier around him, as if he had just willed the bullets away. Hrask leveled a disruptor at the Syndicate man’s head and fired twice, joining the chaos until Trabb’s gun ran dry and clicked uselessly empty in her hands.
Kenshar stood there, unphased. His white duster flapped quietly in the entry door, framing the dim orange light from outside around him and his black synthetic body. The metal of his frame quietly clicked against itself as he brought his ringed hands together, his toothy smile sending shivers down Hexer’s spine. How were they to defeat this… escape this?
“Temper now.” He spoke to them in a Lumirian dialect.
Trabb quietly gawked as she reloaded her rifle from behind her cover. Hrask simply lowered his disruptor.
“You speak the language of these creatures?”
“Once I heard your guard speak it I took the liberty of downloading a simple lexicon." Kenshar shrugged. "Primitive, a bit floaty, but harsh. Lots of hard sounds. A real chore of a language.”
Hrask scoffed.
“Seems you’ve taken measures to protect yourself.”
“Dark matter energy shielding." Kenshar crooned. He seemed to love showing off his toys. "One of the special creations of the Orassian Kingdom I've procured in my business ventures. It’s nigh impervious to energy weapons, ballistics, and prevents dangerous shockwaves from passing through to me as well.”
“And why the needle gun?" Hrask shifted his position, trying to stay between Kenshar and Trabb.
“I'm old, Hrask." Kenshar shrugged. “Eventually you seek out more… extreme forms of entertainment. Sometimes it's just a matter of coaxing new sounds out of someone.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Maybe.”
Trabb shot Hrask a glance of worry.
“So. You’ve come for me?" Hrask continued, trying to keep Kenshar's attention. "Why? After all this time? It can't just be for the money.”
“Boredom, mostly.” Kenshar sighed, picking up Trabb’s half empty bottle of rum and taking a swig with a little sigh of satisfaction. "I'm in need of a fresh experience, and betraying someone like you is the most interesting thing I've done in a decade. Call it the doldrums of immortality.”
He placed the bottle back down, and Hexer raised his remaining eyebrow, glancing over at Trabb. She was looking back at him, thinking the same thing.
“Oh, stop pacing Hrask." The Orassian snapped. "Your considerable bulk won't be enough to shield your little friends. I haven't been hired to end your flicker-life here, but the Rothaki haven't paid me to take these rodents into account. I suggest you act compliantly and let me have my fun, or they both die screaming."
“I didn't think my defection would have angered so many in the Empire.” Hrask huffed. He was still trying to keep the Orassian's attention, keep him talking.
“I have …benefactors.” Kenshar smirked. “Clients…. trusted people within the Syndicate who will not like the paper trail that this server of yours could generate. A great many people profited off the occupation. Some of them do not want it known just how much of their fortunes arose from that boondoggle, and are willing to do a great deal to ensure it doesn’t come back to them.”
So that was what that server had on it. They may as well be carrying an antimatter warhead until they got back into CCA space.
“It’s been almost a century since I’ve fought a Rothaki.” Kenshar mused, then glanced at Trabb. “Though I do not believe I’ve ever met, or killed, one of your kind. Such small things, are they not? I am surprised they served your kind so well as toilers.”
“They could surprise you.”
“I doubt that.”
He’s not organic, Hexer tried to think through the haze of painkillers and the ache of injury. There had to be something there, some advantage to press.
“You've grown deluded over the years.” Hrask shot back.
“My values have changed." The Orassian laughed, clearly enjoying this game, like watching a worm wriggle on a hook. "I am not bound to thoughts of sickness or fear of death, the fear that my strength will fail or that I shall be replaced. I am better than things like you.”
“You sound like everything I turned my back on.” Hrask spat. He had shifted away from Trabb's fridge, wearily leaning on a table covered in surgical instruments. Was he looking for a weapon?
“The arrogance of the Rothaki is deserved." Kenshar shrugged. "To an extent. They’re mighty, strong, industrious, stubborn and relatively long lived. However, all you organics have the same failures and weaknesses, which makes you vulnerable.”
“I can't argue with that.” the Rothaki nodded, then swung.
In a moment, Hrask had the entire metal table in his hands and had closed the two steps between him and Kenshar. He brought the table down like he was hammering a stake into the ground, snapping the metal surface in half after two thunderous drumbeats against the Orassian's metal body.
The Rothaki bellowed like a prehistoric beast, but Kenshar emerged from the splintering wreckage of the table and planted a punch into Hrask almost too fast to follow that left him gasping for air. His feet scrambled to keep himself balanced as he choked, realizing too late that Kenshar had sidestepped him. With one swift movement, he plunged his metallic leg down at Hrask’s ankle with enough force to elicit a muffled crack and send the obese lizard spinning sideways, before another punch threw the massive lizard several feet, crashing into the ground amidst shattered tiles in a puff of dust.
“I expected more from you, Hrask.” Kenshar's servos creaked as he steadied himself. “You’ve grown fat and weak, and not like those rich merchants of your kind who have wealth and power at their backs. Now you hide behind these meek creatures th-”
He was cut off by another blast of rapid fire railgun shots from Trabb, who was moving from cover and across the room. Immediately, Kenshar’s attention shifted, and as he turned to raise his weapon at Trabb, Hrask lunged across the floor to grab his leg and pull. What could have passed for a gasp left Kenshar as he crashed to the ground, and immediately kicked backwards at Hrask, smashing his face, and loosening his grip.
“Your confidence is-” The impact of a metal rod cut him off as it bashed against his head. Trabb was standing over him, laying into him with a section of pipe. The second swing was interrupted by his hand, grabbing the pipe and crushing it between his fingers like it was cardboard.
Something in Hexer's head clicked. The pipe, the bottle, the table. Anything slower than a projectile could get inside that shield. It was a realization interrupted by Kenshar backhanding Trabb across the room. Hexer only saw it for a split second as her body flipped over and crashed into him and his bed, sending them both smashing into the floor along with piles of medical equipment. Hexer lost focus, and realized with some horror that bits of his skin were gone, ripped away as the irrigation tower and the IVs were thrown in the other direction. A river of blood leaked away from his arm and blended in with the pools of cloned blood on the ground.
“Oh no.” He muttered.
“Fuck.” Trabb struggled to stand, her breath sounded heavy and wet. Something had broken inside of her.
Kenshar had found his feet and was reaching for his rifle as Hrask grabbed the entire fridge and hucked it into the synthetic, crushing him under the mass of metal. The room shaking crash left the fridge bent and the doors swinging wildly as food and bottles smashed across the floor and the condenser coils snapping free, hissing out thin streams of gas.
“Trabb… '' Hexer muttered, feeling drunkenly tired, pointing towards rubber tubing on the ground. “Tourniquet.”
“Ah shit.” She grabbed it and quickly tied it to his arm, trying to staunch the bleeding.
“Trabb….his shield. Hand to hand…”
Trabb's gaze flickered to the crushed pipe. “Damn, good eye Hexer…” She glanced back at the two warring titans. “Gives me an idea.”
Gasping, Hrask stood his ground as Kenshar wrenched himself free of the destroyed cooling unit. His white coat was splattered with foodstuffs and coolant. Trabb was already making her way around the bed, drawing a knife. Hexer was starting to lose his vision as the dizziness of his blood loss gripped his mind harder.
“You’re hardly a warrior, Hrask." Kenshar snarled, wiping a congealed clot of protein from his lapel. "Can you muster anything more than insult?"
“Is this sporting enough for you?" Hrask shot back, trying to keep his eyes off of Trabb. "Are you content with having your expensive body pummeled by my weak fists?”
Hrask threw a hook at Kenshar, a telegraphed one that he was able to catch and twist. The Rothaki yelped as his flesh and bones strained, but he had to give Trabb her opening. Kenshar’s smile at his agony was short-lived. Trabb, as quiet as a shadow, jumped Kenshar and lit her filament blade. It sawed into his cheek and jaw, where she was able to wedge it in and cut through something important. Kenshar thrashed , but refused to let go of Hrask, panic in his eyes as he realized the danger his body was in. Hrask lunged, his off hand wrapping around Kenshar’s lower jaw and breaking it loose as the filament blade sliced free. His jaw fell limp and hung by only the smallest of mounting points and Trabb stabbed at his neck again, using her knife as a piton as she clung to the Orassian's shoulders. Kenshar gasped and finally released Hrask as he realized the extent of the damage. He paid all his attention to the tiny Lumirian clinging to him, too late. Trabb had pulled a grenade from her belt and was already shoving it down his gaping throat, which he could no longer hide behind a clenched jaw. Hrask dove behind the counter. Kenshar stuttered and grasped at his neck as Trabb leapt free. No doubt his formerly organic mind was flashing with latent panic as a bygone sensation of choking flashed through his mind.
“What did you j-”
The electrical bang of the plasma grenade shook the room as Kenshar's torso was lit from within by blue flame and a shockwave that caught on the inside of his own shields, fully contained and reverberating through his chassis. The explosion sent him crashing to the ground in a heap, his left arm torn free and his torso blown open, belching noxious smoke into the air.
Hexer sighed, the death grip he'd held on his disruptor lessening. Hrask lay there gasping, and Trabb slowly sat up, shocked at first, but slowly breaking into a pained laugh. Hexer dragged himself further out from behind the bed, trying to get a better look at the scene. The wreckage smoldered like kindling in a junkyard. Trabb gave it a wayward kick as she passed what was left of Kenshar, and moved to try to help the Rothaki up.
“You know, you could h-”
The heap of scrap shifted, then bolted into movement. Skeletal fingers closed around the stock of a weapon.
“Look out!” Hexer yelled, and Trabb wheeled around just fast enough to take a needle in the gut.
The little crystal the size of her pinky lodged in her abdomen and plinked out of existence. Instantly her face twisted in agony from the tiny wound as her entire body folded in half. She made a sound that Hexer had never heard from a living thing.
Trabb twisted and convulsed on the floor, shrieking, pleading, cursing and sobbing as she began ripping out her own fur in clumps between panicked gasps and cries. Her voice strained as she howled, spittle and foam splattering from her mouth.
Hrask quickly rose to his feet as the wreckage of Kenshar did the same, clutching his needle rifle.
“You bastards. Do you have any idea how expensive this body is?”
“Bill me.” Hrask wheezed.
Hexer acted. Drunk on blood loss, he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and cracked into Kenshar’s burnt body, whatever protections he once possessed were now gone. Hexer fired again. Sparks shot through the air as bits of Kenshar’s back plating crumpled. The mangled Orassian turned to him, his broken, jawless form swaying like a reanimated corpse, smoke still pouring from his open ribcage. He fired a shot into Hexer, pegging him in the cast on his leg and ripping into it. He gasped as it lodged into him, waves of something blunt and distant ripping through damaged nerves and medically numbed flesh. That should have hurt a hell of a lot more than it did. He didn’t scream.
Kenshar stared at him dumbly, waiting for him to yelp out. It was enough of a distraction for Hrask to grab one of the paint buckets and smash him over the head with it. Kenshar’s black form was suddenly drenched with thick white as he stumbled and flailed.
“My optics!”
The Rothaki seized his needlegun in one meaty fist and threw it across the room, near where Trabb writhed in agony. Immediately the synthetic wrapped its arms around the offending Rothaki and dug in with his claws, drawing blood and ripping his skin as he refused to let go. Hrask let out another animalistic roar, smashing Kenshar into the tables and floor, breaking tiles and sending splinters up into the air.
Hexer dragged himself across the floor, strength bleeding away. His gun, he’d dropped his gun. His fingers weren’t working. His vision swirled and danced. There had to be something. Something that could rip up this metal monster. The machines on the far side of the room. Metal. That was it.
“Hrask! The chim-chamber, the imager…” Weakly he pointed, and Hrask saw him.
Hrask dragged Kenshar’s body to the MRI as mechanical fingers dug into his arm. The Orassian was coated with blood that wasn't his. With a mighty grunt, the Rothaki stuffed his arm into the cylinder, shoving Kenshar into the tube with it. The mechanical Orassian roared and tried to scrape his way out past Hrask’s limb.
“Hexer!” He suddenly felt more awake, if just barely, as Hrask yelled his name. “The computer terminal! Turn it on!”
With a groan, the half blind, bleeding Lumirian stubbornly dragged himself forward to the little green terminal a few meters away. Hrask was getting torn at every second he crawled across the dusty floor, past the gasping and moaning body of Trabb, past the spent PPC, past the burning bits of Kenshar, and up towards the computer. His chest felt like it would collapse as he clambered up high enough to reach the console.
“You rotten bastards!" Kenshar shrieked, his damaged voicebox sounded tinny and garbled. "I won't die with this body! I will come for you and I will skin you all and sell your hides! I’ll remember your faces! Your names!”
“Remember this!” Hexer hit the switch.
The machine roared to life and a horrible din of flailing metal on metal came from within. The synthetics servos screamed and groaned as Kenshar pounded dents into the casing before the magnetic forces grew strong enough to pin him to the inner walls. His howling voice stretched and grew more distorted as the electromagnetism fried him from the inside out, shorting circuits and erasing code with wild unprejudiced destruction.
“EEaaaaaaRRRrrrggnnn n n n n n n n n n v v v v v sssssssssssssssssssssssss ….. ”
His voice shifted rapidly between syllables and sounds before finally playing a series of loud groaning tones then stuttering and going silent. Hrask wrenched free of the MRI, his arm coated in blood. He stumbled to Trabb, who had thankfully blacked out, and Hexer fell from the terminal, too weak to keep his eyes open.
Eventually the power supply for the MRI shorted, and Kenshar’s body, crumbled and broken, slowly slid out. His dead, paint covered face gawked up at the ceiling. Every once in a while, the fried husk let out a blinking whine. Something was still alive in there, paralyzed and at minimum power, staring out at the world through a single half-scorched sensor.
Hrask was bandaging his arm, and fumbling for the radio on Trabb's hip. Hexer watched the team leader's body go limp as the Rothaki medic shot her full of painkillers, and wondered when he could have any.
That was his last memory from the surface of that dreadful world. The next time he awoke, he was on the evac shuttle.
16:01, 3.13.2391 Official CCA Time
Fen Habbanis, 28.54 degrees W by 81.31 degrees N
Hexer had faded in and out of consciousness many times over the last few hours. It was hard to keep track of exactly what was happening anymore. There were scraps of conversations, half remembered things that Trabb said to him. Word of the ship arriving soon, two hours or so since the last time he'd been coherently awake.
At one point, he realized it was dusk as the light bleeding in through the windows had turned from its normal sickly yellow to a burning orange. The voices from the next room carried over, and he struggled to focus and sit up.
Hrask and Trabb were standing together near a terminal, the one that was wired to a sensor tower outside.
“Are you sure it’s this Kenshar?”
“Positive. The shuttle transponder matches. He’s dealt with me personally more often than not these last few months. I have gone to him many times for equipment, resources, and other goods I needed smuggled onto the world. However, my credit has run dry, and the Fell Throne is paying well for my capture… no doubt a business opportunity for the Syndicate, and a man like Kenshar.”
“Would he come out all this way and try to snatch you up personally?”
“He enjoys dirtying his hands.”
“Some friend he is.”
“Kenshar is the finest friend that money can buy.” Hrask scoffed. “But his loyalty ends there. You’re lucky your culture does not value such a thing.”
“Guess so.” She chuckled. “Maybe I’ll say hello.”
“I am not sure I would suggest that.”
“It'll be a long-distance greeting.”
Hexer watched Trabb as she stepped out of the back room and into the kitchen where the CCA survivors had set up their gear. Hrask ponderously followed her out. She reentered with a hardcase under one arm. It was littered with warnings ranging from ‘fragile’ to ‘radioactive’. Hexer recognized it as one of the particle projectile cannons they had packed away with them for the pickup. A large, shoulder mounted cannon with a seperate nuclear battery, it’d blow a hole in anything small enough to fly through the atmosphere of a planet. It was the same type of weapon that had downed Hexer’s dropship.
“How long have you had that?” Hrask raised his brow.
“Salvaged from the wreck." Trabb grinned as she began connecting the weapon to its battery via thick cables. "Not a chance I was going to let the Syndicate grab it."
“You- you brought something that dangerous with you?” Hrask looked concerned.
“We had to be ready for anything.”
She was already flipping switches on the side of the weapon. A dangerous hum filled the entire room as the PPC powered up, and Hrask seemed keenly aware that the Lumirian was holding enough power to reduce him to ashes and wash his clinic in nuclear fire. The sheer audacity of Hexer's people tended to flabbergast other species.
“How long until Kenshar gets here?”
“F-four minutes.”
“I’ll extend that. Felat, Parmsi.” She snapped her fingers at the marines. “Take up positions in the eastern rubble and get ready for survivors to come this way. I’ll be up top.”
“Yes, sir!”
Her two remaining soldiers rushed out the door with rifles in hand as Trabb scrambled up a rusted ladder to the roof. This left Hexer alone with Hrask. The injured Lumirian silently watched the huge lizard as he lingered in the center of the room, looking out the shuttered windows. Slowly he turned towards Hexer.
“I feel obligated to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I have angered these men, and they’ve brought harm to you because of me.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Perhaps.” His golden eyes drifted down to Hexer’s leg as he stepped up.
“You seem to be doing well. Your injuries have stabilized, though you have lost a considerable amount of blood. You may need another flash cloned transfusion soon.”
He reached down and picked up some type of medical scanner that Hexer didn’t recognize, and began analyzing the readings from the biobed. A loud electrical bang shook the clinic as Trabb fired her PPC. Disturbed dust drifted from the ceiling and a distant, booming echo carried itself across the fields of debris around them. Hexer knew that sound, it was the last thing he'd heard back when he had two working eyes and a pair of legs.
Trabb slid down, her massive gun smoking profusely with parts of it glowing red hot.
“Got that bastard’s zip shuttle. With any luck he’s dead.”
“I have doubts…" Hrask winced. "We must remain cautious until your ship arrives.”
“How’s the pilot?” She tossed the spent PPC into the corner of the room where it clattered across the ground near the MRI machine.
“Not critical. He needs time to recover and some more treatment, but he will survive.”
“Hmm, good, real stubborn bastard. I like that.”
“Trabb.” Hrask turned to her. “If I do not make it out. Take this.” He handed her something small. “A duplicate of the data on the server. Though I still suspect your people want the real one I carry.”
“I fully intend on getting you and that thing off world. I didn’t come all this way to fail this mission.” She looked him up and down. “Even if what I bring back is not what I expected.”
“She just doesn't want to get chewed out for this dam-burst of a mission.” Hexer chuckled.
“Oh you’re well enough to snark me?” Trabb walked up and patted his bandaged leg, causing Hexer to grimace in discomfort. The pain was dulled, but he could feel parts of himself rubbing against things that they shouldn't.
"Let him rest." Hrask stated firmly. Both Trabb and Hexer obeyed, as the pilot felt his head hit the pillow and his dreary grasp on consciousness loosened. The weakening orange rays of the setting sun were his only clear grasp of time.
Hexer woke to the sound of Lumirian railguns, then a pair of loud crashes that sounded like a lightning bolt shattering glass. Then, beyond the walls of the clinic, there was a horrid, ear-piercing scream that rattled Hexer worse than gunfire.
“YEAAAGH AAAAAH! HELP HELP I- AUUUAAAGH AAAAHUGH Huggh…!”
“What the fuck was that…?” He whispered, the hoarse sounds of torment fading in intensity as the Lumirian making them screamed himself to exhaustion. There was a second sound out there he realized, something heavy, wet and raspy. It also dwindled into silence.
“I’m not sure.” Hrask gritted his teeth.
“Jirhal needles.” A voice called from the outside. It was laconic and playful, but loud enough to carry across the yard into the clinic. “Very nasty, very sharp. They explode after impact, letting out thousands of tiny, barbed micro-flechettes. They’re designed to incapacitate through severe pain. A movement as subtle as breathing is enough to shred the flesh they touch and move the splinters deeper into tissue. One of your men has one of those needles through his gut. He may live, despite desiring otherwise at the moment. I shot the other man in the neck.”
"Kenshar." Hrask hissed.
“Bastard…” Trabb spit it out under her breath, scuttling across the floor into cover behind a fridge. The fire was in her eyes. Slowly Hexer picked up the pistol that rested at his side and weakly aimed it towards the door.
“We can’t stay here…” Hexer whispered, unable to rise on his own. But where would they go?
“You don’t want to do this, Kenshar.” Hrask called out.
“You don’t know what I want, my dear, hydrocarbon-laden friend.” The voice laughed back.
Hrask raised his gun to the door as one set of footfalls approached. So he really was coming himself. Hexer wasn’t sure what to expect, he wasn’t sure what he could do. A shadow moved across the door’s threshold, then he stepped in, rifle slung over his back, smiling. Hexer had never seen a creature like Kenshar before. Though, maybe creature was the wrong word.
Kenshar, clad in a white duster, looked mammalian and mechanical all at once. It was tall and thin, and bore the hallmarks of something vulpine with the long snout and ears, though they were made of black metal. Ragged silver fur clung to areas of his face atop some type of artificial skin that granted expressiveness to his eyes and framed his jaw in a fuzzy mane of fur. He resembled something that had been taxidermied, the aging hide of a long dead beast falling away to reveal the metal armature that resided just beneath the skin.
A bass filled electrical snap rocked the air, and maintained itself with a rhythmic thudding that rattled the entire room as gunfire ignited the clinic. Kenshar simply raised his hand. Trabb’s auto-rail loosed its whole drum and kicked up dust all around the Orassian as the slugs ricocheted violently off a nearly invisible teal barrier around him, as if he had just willed the bullets away. Hrask leveled a disruptor at the Syndicate man’s head and fired twice, joining the chaos until Trabb’s gun ran dry and clicked uselessly empty in her hands.
Kenshar stood there, unphased. His white duster flapped quietly in the entry door, framing the dim orange light from outside around him and his black synthetic body. The metal of his frame quietly clicked against itself as he brought his ringed hands together, his toothy smile sending shivers down Hexer’s spine. How were they to defeat this… escape this?
“Temper now.” He spoke to them in a Lumirian dialect.
Trabb quietly gawked as she reloaded her rifle from behind her cover. Hrask simply lowered his disruptor.
“You speak the language of these creatures?”
“Once I heard your guard speak it I took the liberty of downloading a simple lexicon." Kenshar shrugged. "Primitive, a bit floaty, but harsh. Lots of hard sounds. A real chore of a language.”
Hrask scoffed.
“Seems you’ve taken measures to protect yourself.”
“Dark matter energy shielding." Kenshar crooned. He seemed to love showing off his toys. "One of the special creations of the Orassian Kingdom I've procured in my business ventures. It’s nigh impervious to energy weapons, ballistics, and prevents dangerous shockwaves from passing through to me as well.”
“And why the needle gun?" Hrask shifted his position, trying to stay between Kenshar and Trabb.
“I'm old, Hrask." Kenshar shrugged. “Eventually you seek out more… extreme forms of entertainment. Sometimes it's just a matter of coaxing new sounds out of someone.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Maybe.”
Trabb shot Hrask a glance of worry.
“So. You’ve come for me?" Hrask continued, trying to keep Kenshar's attention. "Why? After all this time? It can't just be for the money.”
“Boredom, mostly.” Kenshar sighed, picking up Trabb’s half empty bottle of rum and taking a swig with a little sigh of satisfaction. "I'm in need of a fresh experience, and betraying someone like you is the most interesting thing I've done in a decade. Call it the doldrums of immortality.”
He placed the bottle back down, and Hexer raised his remaining eyebrow, glancing over at Trabb. She was looking back at him, thinking the same thing.
“Oh, stop pacing Hrask." The Orassian snapped. "Your considerable bulk won't be enough to shield your little friends. I haven't been hired to end your flicker-life here, but the Rothaki haven't paid me to take these rodents into account. I suggest you act compliantly and let me have my fun, or they both die screaming."
“I didn't think my defection would have angered so many in the Empire.” Hrask huffed. He was still trying to keep the Orassian's attention, keep him talking.
“I have …benefactors.” Kenshar smirked. “Clients…. trusted people within the Syndicate who will not like the paper trail that this server of yours could generate. A great many people profited off the occupation. Some of them do not want it known just how much of their fortunes arose from that boondoggle, and are willing to do a great deal to ensure it doesn’t come back to them.”
So that was what that server had on it. They may as well be carrying an antimatter warhead until they got back into CCA space.
“It’s been almost a century since I’ve fought a Rothaki.” Kenshar mused, then glanced at Trabb. “Though I do not believe I’ve ever met, or killed, one of your kind. Such small things, are they not? I am surprised they served your kind so well as toilers.”
“They could surprise you.”
“I doubt that.”
He’s not organic, Hexer tried to think through the haze of painkillers and the ache of injury. There had to be something there, some advantage to press.
“You've grown deluded over the years.” Hrask shot back.
“My values have changed." The Orassian laughed, clearly enjoying this game, like watching a worm wriggle on a hook. "I am not bound to thoughts of sickness or fear of death, the fear that my strength will fail or that I shall be replaced. I am better than things like you.”
“You sound like everything I turned my back on.” Hrask spat. He had shifted away from Trabb's fridge, wearily leaning on a table covered in surgical instruments. Was he looking for a weapon?
“The arrogance of the Rothaki is deserved." Kenshar shrugged. "To an extent. They’re mighty, strong, industrious, stubborn and relatively long lived. However, all you organics have the same failures and weaknesses, which makes you vulnerable.”
“I can't argue with that.” the Rothaki nodded, then swung.
In a moment, Hrask had the entire metal table in his hands and had closed the two steps between him and Kenshar. He brought the table down like he was hammering a stake into the ground, snapping the metal surface in half after two thunderous drumbeats against the Orassian's metal body.
The Rothaki bellowed like a prehistoric beast, but Kenshar emerged from the splintering wreckage of the table and planted a punch into Hrask almost too fast to follow that left him gasping for air. His feet scrambled to keep himself balanced as he choked, realizing too late that Kenshar had sidestepped him. With one swift movement, he plunged his metallic leg down at Hrask’s ankle with enough force to elicit a muffled crack and send the obese lizard spinning sideways, before another punch threw the massive lizard several feet, crashing into the ground amidst shattered tiles in a puff of dust.
“I expected more from you, Hrask.” Kenshar's servos creaked as he steadied himself. “You’ve grown fat and weak, and not like those rich merchants of your kind who have wealth and power at their backs. Now you hide behind these meek creatures th-”
He was cut off by another blast of rapid fire railgun shots from Trabb, who was moving from cover and across the room. Immediately, Kenshar’s attention shifted, and as he turned to raise his weapon at Trabb, Hrask lunged across the floor to grab his leg and pull. What could have passed for a gasp left Kenshar as he crashed to the ground, and immediately kicked backwards at Hrask, smashing his face, and loosening his grip.
“Your confidence is-” The impact of a metal rod cut him off as it bashed against his head. Trabb was standing over him, laying into him with a section of pipe. The second swing was interrupted by his hand, grabbing the pipe and crushing it between his fingers like it was cardboard.
Something in Hexer's head clicked. The pipe, the bottle, the table. Anything slower than a projectile could get inside that shield. It was a realization interrupted by Kenshar backhanding Trabb across the room. Hexer only saw it for a split second as her body flipped over and crashed into him and his bed, sending them both smashing into the floor along with piles of medical equipment. Hexer lost focus, and realized with some horror that bits of his skin were gone, ripped away as the irrigation tower and the IVs were thrown in the other direction. A river of blood leaked away from his arm and blended in with the pools of cloned blood on the ground.
“Oh no.” He muttered.
“Fuck.” Trabb struggled to stand, her breath sounded heavy and wet. Something had broken inside of her.
Kenshar had found his feet and was reaching for his rifle as Hrask grabbed the entire fridge and hucked it into the synthetic, crushing him under the mass of metal. The room shaking crash left the fridge bent and the doors swinging wildly as food and bottles smashed across the floor and the condenser coils snapping free, hissing out thin streams of gas.
“Trabb… '' Hexer muttered, feeling drunkenly tired, pointing towards rubber tubing on the ground. “Tourniquet.”
“Ah shit.” She grabbed it and quickly tied it to his arm, trying to staunch the bleeding.
“Trabb….his shield. Hand to hand…”
Trabb's gaze flickered to the crushed pipe. “Damn, good eye Hexer…” She glanced back at the two warring titans. “Gives me an idea.”
Gasping, Hrask stood his ground as Kenshar wrenched himself free of the destroyed cooling unit. His white coat was splattered with foodstuffs and coolant. Trabb was already making her way around the bed, drawing a knife. Hexer was starting to lose his vision as the dizziness of his blood loss gripped his mind harder.
“You’re hardly a warrior, Hrask." Kenshar snarled, wiping a congealed clot of protein from his lapel. "Can you muster anything more than insult?"
“Is this sporting enough for you?" Hrask shot back, trying to keep his eyes off of Trabb. "Are you content with having your expensive body pummeled by my weak fists?”
Hrask threw a hook at Kenshar, a telegraphed one that he was able to catch and twist. The Rothaki yelped as his flesh and bones strained, but he had to give Trabb her opening. Kenshar’s smile at his agony was short-lived. Trabb, as quiet as a shadow, jumped Kenshar and lit her filament blade. It sawed into his cheek and jaw, where she was able to wedge it in and cut through something important. Kenshar thrashed , but refused to let go of Hrask, panic in his eyes as he realized the danger his body was in. Hrask lunged, his off hand wrapping around Kenshar’s lower jaw and breaking it loose as the filament blade sliced free. His jaw fell limp and hung by only the smallest of mounting points and Trabb stabbed at his neck again, using her knife as a piton as she clung to the Orassian's shoulders. Kenshar gasped and finally released Hrask as he realized the extent of the damage. He paid all his attention to the tiny Lumirian clinging to him, too late. Trabb had pulled a grenade from her belt and was already shoving it down his gaping throat, which he could no longer hide behind a clenched jaw. Hrask dove behind the counter. Kenshar stuttered and grasped at his neck as Trabb leapt free. No doubt his formerly organic mind was flashing with latent panic as a bygone sensation of choking flashed through his mind.
“What did you j-”
The electrical bang of the plasma grenade shook the room as Kenshar's torso was lit from within by blue flame and a shockwave that caught on the inside of his own shields, fully contained and reverberating through his chassis. The explosion sent him crashing to the ground in a heap, his left arm torn free and his torso blown open, belching noxious smoke into the air.
Hexer sighed, the death grip he'd held on his disruptor lessening. Hrask lay there gasping, and Trabb slowly sat up, shocked at first, but slowly breaking into a pained laugh. Hexer dragged himself further out from behind the bed, trying to get a better look at the scene. The wreckage smoldered like kindling in a junkyard. Trabb gave it a wayward kick as she passed what was left of Kenshar, and moved to try to help the Rothaki up.
“You know, you could h-”
The heap of scrap shifted, then bolted into movement. Skeletal fingers closed around the stock of a weapon.
“Look out!” Hexer yelled, and Trabb wheeled around just fast enough to take a needle in the gut.
The little crystal the size of her pinky lodged in her abdomen and plinked out of existence. Instantly her face twisted in agony from the tiny wound as her entire body folded in half. She made a sound that Hexer had never heard from a living thing.
Trabb twisted and convulsed on the floor, shrieking, pleading, cursing and sobbing as she began ripping out her own fur in clumps between panicked gasps and cries. Her voice strained as she howled, spittle and foam splattering from her mouth.
Hrask quickly rose to his feet as the wreckage of Kenshar did the same, clutching his needle rifle.
“You bastards. Do you have any idea how expensive this body is?”
“Bill me.” Hrask wheezed.
Hexer acted. Drunk on blood loss, he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and cracked into Kenshar’s burnt body, whatever protections he once possessed were now gone. Hexer fired again. Sparks shot through the air as bits of Kenshar’s back plating crumpled. The mangled Orassian turned to him, his broken, jawless form swaying like a reanimated corpse, smoke still pouring from his open ribcage. He fired a shot into Hexer, pegging him in the cast on his leg and ripping into it. He gasped as it lodged into him, waves of something blunt and distant ripping through damaged nerves and medically numbed flesh. That should have hurt a hell of a lot more than it did. He didn’t scream.
Kenshar stared at him dumbly, waiting for him to yelp out. It was enough of a distraction for Hrask to grab one of the paint buckets and smash him over the head with it. Kenshar’s black form was suddenly drenched with thick white as he stumbled and flailed.
“My optics!”
The Rothaki seized his needlegun in one meaty fist and threw it across the room, near where Trabb writhed in agony. Immediately the synthetic wrapped its arms around the offending Rothaki and dug in with his claws, drawing blood and ripping his skin as he refused to let go. Hrask let out another animalistic roar, smashing Kenshar into the tables and floor, breaking tiles and sending splinters up into the air.
Hexer dragged himself across the floor, strength bleeding away. His gun, he’d dropped his gun. His fingers weren’t working. His vision swirled and danced. There had to be something. Something that could rip up this metal monster. The machines on the far side of the room. Metal. That was it.
“Hrask! The chim-chamber, the imager…” Weakly he pointed, and Hrask saw him.
Hrask dragged Kenshar’s body to the MRI as mechanical fingers dug into his arm. The Orassian was coated with blood that wasn't his. With a mighty grunt, the Rothaki stuffed his arm into the cylinder, shoving Kenshar into the tube with it. The mechanical Orassian roared and tried to scrape his way out past Hrask’s limb.
“Hexer!” He suddenly felt more awake, if just barely, as Hrask yelled his name. “The computer terminal! Turn it on!”
With a groan, the half blind, bleeding Lumirian stubbornly dragged himself forward to the little green terminal a few meters away. Hrask was getting torn at every second he crawled across the dusty floor, past the gasping and moaning body of Trabb, past the spent PPC, past the burning bits of Kenshar, and up towards the computer. His chest felt like it would collapse as he clambered up high enough to reach the console.
“You rotten bastards!" Kenshar shrieked, his damaged voicebox sounded tinny and garbled. "I won't die with this body! I will come for you and I will skin you all and sell your hides! I’ll remember your faces! Your names!”
“Remember this!” Hexer hit the switch.
The machine roared to life and a horrible din of flailing metal on metal came from within. The synthetics servos screamed and groaned as Kenshar pounded dents into the casing before the magnetic forces grew strong enough to pin him to the inner walls. His howling voice stretched and grew more distorted as the electromagnetism fried him from the inside out, shorting circuits and erasing code with wild unprejudiced destruction.
“EEaaaaaaRRRrrrggnnn n n n n n n n n n v v v v v sssssssssssssssssssssssss ….. ”
His voice shifted rapidly between syllables and sounds before finally playing a series of loud groaning tones then stuttering and going silent. Hrask wrenched free of the MRI, his arm coated in blood. He stumbled to Trabb, who had thankfully blacked out, and Hexer fell from the terminal, too weak to keep his eyes open.
Eventually the power supply for the MRI shorted, and Kenshar’s body, crumbled and broken, slowly slid out. His dead, paint covered face gawked up at the ceiling. Every once in a while, the fried husk let out a blinking whine. Something was still alive in there, paralyzed and at minimum power, staring out at the world through a single half-scorched sensor.
Hrask was bandaging his arm, and fumbling for the radio on Trabb's hip. Hexer watched the team leader's body go limp as the Rothaki medic shot her full of painkillers, and wondered when he could have any.
That was his last memory from the surface of that dreadful world. The next time he awoke, he was on the evac shuttle.
- 2
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