CHAPTER 9:
I would have posted this chapter sooner, but my internet provider is nothing but a bunch of incompetent, lazy, thick-skulled, knuckle-dragging, troglodyte jag-offs who wouldn't know customer service if it came up and bit them in the arse. Embarq, you suck! And since I was busy clouding up and raining all over brainless operator drones, trying to get my internet capabilities up and running, it's taken me a while to get around to writing. But here I am. And instead of ranting about how we need to rise up and take our society back from the corporations, I'm just gonna give you the final chapter of the tragic love story that is "A Tale of Tak and Tenn." Enjoy.
Tak slid the metal legs from her pak as the cell door opened. Three meekrobians began to drift slowly into the room. Upon seeing Tak, they froze. The tips of Tak's spider legs glowed blue.
"Hello." Tak said coldly, then fired a blast of energy that was nearly four times what was neccessary to do the job, and drained a tenth of her pak's power. The meekrobians were instantly demolecularized, and the wall around the door disentigrated, the iron door flying into the wall across the passage with a loud clang. Tak walked calmly and cooly through the cloud of dust, with Tenn's body over her shoulder. A meekrobian guard fired at her from the end of the hall. Tak fired another enormous blast, destroying the meekrobian, but lowering the energy level of her pak a little more. She walked on, deeper into the cave.
Tak came to a door at the end of the passage. Pressing her ear to the metal, she could hear several meekrobians inside. She smiled evily. Tak lowered Tenn's body gently to the ground, and peered into the small window. Five meekrobians floated in the center of the room. On one wall, Tak noticed her rifle and Tenn's pistol belt laying on a small ridge. She gently tried the door. It was unlocked.
"Dumb fucking move." Tak whispered. With a yell, she flung the door open, and dove into the room, hitting the ground rolling. A plasmoid blast hit the ground next to Tak as she lept to her feet. Another passed close to her head. She grabbed the rifle, hit the on switch, and fired into the first meekrobian, who screamed as his structure quickly eroded. Another meekrobian fired a ray, hitting Tak in the abdomen. She let out a gasp of pain, but fired into the meekrobian several times, then turned the rifle on another, squeezing the trigger as fast as she could. Another blast hit Tak in her left arm, but she continued firing madly, until all five of the meekrobians were destroyed.
"Ffffuck." Tak gasped, faling to her knees, clutching the wound in her stomach with her nearly numb left hand. The wounds screamed for medical attention, but Tak gritted her teeth, forcing herself back to her feet. She stumbled over to the ledge, and pulled down the pistol belt, fastening it around her waist. She felt three fist-sized objects in the pouches on the belt, and pulled one out to investigate. E.M.P. grenades! Tak sighed. Tenn had thought of everything. Tak slowly and painfully picked up her rifle, and exited the room through a door opposite the one she entered through, hoping that it would lead her to more of the meekrobians.
Her wishes were granted, as she found herself in a huge chamber, full of the beings. A long stone table sat at the end of the room, where a dozen meekrobians hovered, humming amongst themselves, as at least sixty more watched silently. Tak moved slowly behind an outcropping of rock, and glowered wrathfully at the scene before her. She realized that she must be in the hive, in the main control center of the meekrobian cave. She smiled again, wickedly, and pulled one of the grenades from a pouch, activating it by twisting its two halves in oppusite directions. She quietly rolled the grenade across the floor, into the midst of the meekrobian spectators. Tak slid the selector switch of her rifle to full automatic, and gently kissed the gun's barrel. She pulled another grenade from a pouch, and activated it.
"This is for you, Tenn." She whispered. The first grenade exploded with an elecric-blue light. Half of the meekrobians in the room were instantly destroyed where they were, and a few more seemed to be injured, for they fell to the floor, glowing dimly. Tak lept from behind the rock, and pitched the other grenade into the room The remaining meekrobians turned, and fired energy blasts in Tak's direction. Ignoring the rounds like gnats, Tak sprayed a burst of plasma fire into the room, taking down several meekrobians. Tak was hit in the right thigh, just as the second grenade exploded. Shrill screams filled the air as a dozen more meekrobians were killed. Tak fell to her stomach on the ground, but kept up her rate of fire. The few remaining meekrobians flew back and forth across the room in a panic, firing wildly in Tak's general direction. A blast grazed along her back. It burned terribly, but failed to keep her from exacting her vengeance. She killed three more meekrobians before her rifle ran out of power.
"Fuck!" Tak exclaimed. She fought her way to her feet, and pulled the pistol from its holster. Taking careful aim, she fired into a meekrobian. Then another. She limped deeper into the room. A meekrobian fired from her right, barely missing Tak. She growled in rage, and fired three rounds into her attacker. To her surprise, the meekrobians at the table hadn't moved amid all of the fighting. She dispatched the last three meekrobian soldiers as she made her way to the table. The beings at the table all moved to one side of the stone platform as Tak reached them. She stopped, and stood, staring at them with a fire in her eyes.
"You've won." One of the meekrobians said coldly. "You've destroyed every soldier here, taken our most fortified of bases, and now it seems, you have us in your grasp." Tak panted angrily. "But I must ask," The being continued. "What now? I suppose you want us to surrender, to declare our allegiance to the Irken empire?"
"I...don't really give a...fuck." Tak panted.
"Then what is it you want?" Another meekrobian asked. Tak looked at them all blankly. She slid her hand into the last puch, activating the final grenade.
"I want Tenn back, you bastards." She casually dropped the grenade onto the table. A meekrobian leader fired a ray, hitting Tak in the chest, and sending her onto her back. The grenade exploded, killing the meekrobian leaders before they could move. A dead silence came over the room, a silence broken only an eventual cough from Tak's prone form. Tak stirred slightly, and opened her eyes. Grunting in agony, she managed to roll onto her stomach, and crawl from the room.
Tak slowly crawled out of the chamber, through the guard room, and back into the passage. She worked her way over to Tenn's body, and placing her injured left arm over Tenn, collapsed onto her chest. She looked weakly at Tenn's face, her eyelids slowly closing on their own. She grasped Tenn's limp left hand in her right.
"We...did it." Tak muttered. "Your...mission...your mission was a...success." She felt tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm coming...my love. I'm...you meet...me when I ...get there, huh?" A small smile crossed her trembling lips for a moment, then died away. "Be...because I d...don't wan't to...face eternity without your pretty face beside me." She winced in pain. "God's, Tenn, please be...be there." She could no longer hold her eyes open, and she felt all sterength leaving her. Darkness slowly crept in. She forced one more small breath into her body, enough for one last declaration, one Tak wanted to be her last.
"Tenn," She whispered, "I love you." The lights on Tak's PAK dimmed, and went black, and her body fell limp as her last words faded in the darkness of the cave, their tomb for eternity.
Okay, there's a time to be a smart-ass, and a time to be serious, even for me. That last scene was something, and I don't know where in the bowels of my usually apathetic psyche it came from. So, I'm not going to even say anything facetious or humerous about it, and let it stand as it is. I hope you enjoyed this story. I'm currently working on an idea, and so my next story should begin to appear soon. Until then, my loyal readers, and new readers alike, cheerio.
