10.
"I don't want to lose you, either!"
Kassius parted his mandibles as the soft human fell against him, arms raised defensively at his sides. Her eyes leaked profusely, like a malfunctioning machine, staining her cheeks with streams of salt. The cold air was almost intangible now; only brisk winds reminded him that there was an outside world beyond him and her.
Somehow, he knew exactly where she had gone. Part of him expected her to make the journey at some point, but he wished she had taken him along for it; the thought of Catherine wailing in the valley tugged at his heart. He wanted nothing more than to return her embrace; to rest his chin on her shoulder and feel her energy wash through him, but he wouldn't dare take advantage of her vulnerability.
His hand clasped her shoulder, eliciting a sudden jerk as Catherine moved back. Now her facial features seemed angry, though her remaining body language revealed a tone of confused surrender. In the silence, Kassius moved his fingers along her arm, stopping only as he hesitated to intertwine them with hers. They lingered just beyond, lightly brushing the outline of her gloves.
"Come inside," he whispered, focusing on their hands with some intensity. He wasn't sure what else to say. "I'm here right now. Let's get you warmed up, and then we can talk."
Catherine looked up at him with a look that he saw often, but didn't quite understand - it seemed almost like a mixture of bewilderment, frustration, and wonder – and followed him indoors.
"Kassius," she started as he gathered sweats for her to wear. Her embrace had been brief… Too brief. Her mouth felt dry, and her heart pounded enough to leave her feeling winded, but she refused to dwell on the sensation. "I… I had to see it."
"I know," he replied, gently handing her the clothes. He, too, longed for her touch.
Now is not the time, he urged himself.
Catherine took the clothes into her hand, but did not move to change. Instead, she continued to stare at him with those metallic blue eyes he had, admittedly, grown rather fond of. They spoke a language he wanted nothing more than to understand.
"Kassius," she began again, his name hissing off of her tongue. "I can't…"
Her breathing became unsteady. Quickly, he fell weak to his urges, enveloping her in his arms as another wave of her hysteria seeded itself. His hand froze just beyond her head, then came down, stroking her hair. "…I promise you I'm not going anywhere."
"You can't say that," she warned. "I am the mark of death. You will fall to it, like so many others. It's only a matter of time. What happens when you die, Kass?"
He moved away, retaining a firm grip on her shoulders and lowering himself so that they were on eye-level. "Then I'd want you to know I have enjoyed every moment with you."
She laughed once, following it with a sniffle and wiping under her eyes. Her head shook in disbelief, but beneath the surface, she was healing. "I wish I'd met you elsewhere."
Tucking the clothes under her arm, Catherine moved away and walked to the restroom, shedding her clothes immediately as the door closed behind her. Kassius watched her departure, studying the way her suit was shaped against her shoulders and noticing the various pieces of geometry that seemed to outline the human form. If he had her talents, he'd do a portrait of her. Even his words fell short; a poem could never surmise the strange vibrations she stirred within him. He thought of them as colors, envisioning a dancing aura of reds and whites, but to put it to words?
You're in love with her.
Maybe so.
The residual energy of their embrace surrounded him. He thought of pressing his head against hers, maybe gently and then roughly as he coaxed her into their bed.
Not here, he reminded himself. You'd never forgive yourself if she left you for someone else. You have to see how you hold up against others. You have to give her that chance.
Catherine stepped out of the bathroom, lazily tossing her enviro-suit to the floor and meeting his stare with caution. Her aura danced, too, even as she shivered and struggled to regain her natural warmth.
Peculiarly, she spoke up, as though she had read his mind. At this point, Kassius began to wonder if humans possessed some keen form of telepathy, or if he was simply too easy to read.
"We've got to get out of here."
"Ah, damn it! That's the third time this has happened to me today!"
A small circle rotated on the Omni-tool's projection as the video came to a halt. The lag had occurred a couple of times, and while the net was typically slow out in the Terminus Systems, this was especially jarring, especially since the video pertained to their conversation.
Arisa Liu tied back her beautifully sleek hair, as she often did when any frustration set in. Catherine watched her fondly, glad that her body language was still the same, even after all these years.
"I suppose I'll have to show you another time," she sighed, pulling up her bra strap as it sagged down her shoulder, exposing itself beyond her short sleeve. The vehicle came to a halt, with the emergency breaks hissing as they activated. "Damned extranet. I thought with all the improvements around here, the net might have been a priority, but alas."
The door opened with hydraulic whirring, exposing them to the bright sun. Catherine stepped out first, watching her footing on the loose, golden soil. Arisa, on the other hand, seemed to fly out, leaping onto the ground and crouching as she landed. At some point, she had heard it was better to land that way in a fall.
Leaving the all-terrain vehicle behind them, the two girls trekked along the path at the side of the mountain. It became thinner as they progressed, and with this view, most people might have been nervous. From here, you could see it all – in the distance, the megastructures of Attus adorned the horizon, while just between it and the mountain, stray settlements freckled the landscape.
From the settlement of Houlonne, the smoke around the bend was visible. Although she was freshly on shore leave, Catherine was quick to volunteer her time. If it was, indeed, a crashed probe, her experience with coding might aid the gathering of any encrypted information; additionally, some quality time with an old friend was definitely a bonus.
Arisa was here not as a volunteer, but as a worker. Her and Catherine went way back, but when Catherine had gone off to the academy, Arisa stayed home to study engineering. She hoped to salvage the pricey piece of equipment, or at the very least, whatever parts she could manage.
Catherine watched her feet as she moved against the mountain, cautious of the steep drop she would descend with a single misplaced step. Just around the bend, she reminded herself. "Careful. I'm in full gear – if I fall, I might sustain some light injury. If you fall, it could be ugly."
"Note taken, but I'm fine. I'm glad you came along, though, even if it doesn't really make any sense that you did."
"What do you mean?"
With a puff, Catherine blew a curly lock of her hair out of her face. She'd been a little lax on the uniform regulations in the past two days, but her armor was new and she felt like showing it off enough to forego wearing civvies.
"You just got home. I figured you'd want to spend some time with your folks, but you're still in action."
"You call this action?" Catherine laughed, then slipped on a rock. She caught her breath quickly, placing one hand on her chest. "Besides, it gives us a change to hang out. Plus, I'd kind of like to see you at work. Arisa Liu: the engineer! Malcolm spoke highly of your talents, you know."
"Please. Malcolm is hardly a connoisseur of intelligence."
Around the bend, the rumors proved true – deeply seeded into a self-made crater, a huge probe creaked and groaned in the wind. Here and there, amid the smoke, a spark of electricity scattered over exposed circuit boards.
"What have we here?" Arisa mused with a purr, enclosing on the contraption. "Alright, little fella, let's find out what clipped your wings."
Catherine maintained a respectful distance, watching her friend study the damages. "Just remember to grab the drives so I can take a look at them. Might tell us something."
Within seconds, Arisa tossed her a small chip, which Catherine tucked into a scanner on her Omni-tool.
"Wow, they really went all out with this one," the soldier whispered, analyzing the codes. "Must have been an extranet relay."
"Net relay and surveillance," Arisa confirmed, ripping a busted sheet of metal from the side and mumbling something about garbage to herself. "Makes sense that they wouldn't want any of that information getting out. I don't know about you, but I'm not down to let some Batarian terrorist know what kind of porn I watch… or, you know, the locations of our mines, if they've got serious priorities."
For several minutes, the girls went to work on the probe. Curiously enough, it did not appear to have sustained damage before its impact – no, it seemed as though it had been remotely accessed by someone else, but there were no fingerprints to follow on that lead. They had only speculations and theories to guide them until finally, Catherine stumbled across the system's notes.
"Strange," she said to herself.
"What is it?"
"It says a ship entered the system undetected, and that its scanners could not confirm the origin. While it attempted to analyze the ship, it was cut off. After that, there's nothing."
"Pirates?" Arisa asked.
"I'm not sure, but if the system has been invaded, we'll need to get back as soon as we can. We can't make a call from out here."
Downloading the data, Catherine heaved herself off of the ground.
"Let's get to Attus so that we can check in with P.D.," she suggested, making her way back around the bend. "They'll be able to reach the militia. Let's hope your theory is right – we're equipped for Batarians, but I can't say the same of the Geth."
"Those days are behind us!" Arisa followed. "The Alliance was able to put down whatever had caused the attack on Eden Prime. The Geth have no reason to attack."
Catherine scoffed in the way someone with vastly superior knowledge might. Sure, the Council believed that the Geth had followed Saren's leadership, but anyone with any level of critical thinking could tell something deeper had occurred.
They boarded the all-terrain once again, then descended the mountain with such speed that for a moment, not a single wheel made contact with the ground. THUD, BANG, THUD – it was graceless, but that was what these machines were built to withstand.
"You drive like Mad Max!" Arisa exclaimed, clinging onto the Oh Shit Handle for her life.
"Who?!" Catherine asked, though in context, she understood the bare minimum – she was fast, reckless, and perhaps one with the vehicle as it flew past Houlonne.
"It's an old film, been remade a few times—shit!"
They made air once more. This time, Catherine howled like a madwoman. Had she known that it was to be the last time in a long time, she might have embraced the sensation of her laughter.
Attus drew near at an alarming pace, first with small buildings and then with great monstrous creations that towered over them like metal titans. Much of the traffic was overhead, flying about in their stylish hover-cars and shuttles, but the all-terrain's speed had greatly reduced as the number of pedestrians increased. Catherine huffed and groaned, cursing at a woman as she stopped to halfway through the intersection look at the car.
"What, you've never seen a fucking Mako before?!" she shouted, slamming on the horn. "Look at how she's dressed – fuck's sake, I can't stand inner-city fashion. You'd think the distance from Earth would mean they wouldn't follow all the New York trends, but evidently that's wishful thinking. The fuck are those?"
She gestured at the woman's shoes, then slammed on the horn once again for good measure.
"Maybe we should park and go by foot?" Arisa contemplated. "There's a garage just around the corner."
"Fuck that," Catherine growled, stopping the car in the middle of the road. She opened the doors, leaping out and nearly falling onto an onlooking citizen. She ignored his exclamations. "We might not have time to play games."
"You could get a ticket," Arisa groaned, nonetheless following her friend. "I mean, it isn't your car, but you can't just park in the middle of the road."
"Who knows? They might thank me for doing it if it stops an invasion."
Catherine closed the door behind them, locking it up and heading further down the street, leaving a gaggle of walkers to stare at the car with wonder.
Dry thunder erupted from overhead. In front of them, the Alliance Embassy building seemed to pierce the clouds. Catherine wondered what it would be like to work in an office on that top floor, especially on a day like this, where the air was dry and hot and the sky fired electric shots of protest.
"Planetary Defense should be in the Embassy building, but I'm not sure about the floor…"
Arisa looked up, stopping in her tracks. For a second, it was eerily silent and still. Catherine noticed her friend's absence, then looked over her shoulder.
"Arisa—"
The sky ripped open with the sound of a thousand thunderstorms, shaking the ground around them with a low, train-like rumble. If anyone screamed, it was inaudible, but Catherine was certain no one had – they were each too busy staring at the beast that had now stopped just above the Embassy, like a ship oozing with infected wounds.
"What is that…?" she whispered, sound barely travelling beyond her body. It was stammeringly terrible. Her hand reached for Arisa's wrist, swiping at nothing until she grasped onto her skin. Arisa said nothing.
The ship was covered in tiny holes, like the combs of a hive. Little ships began seeping out, with even smaller dots flying from the confines like hornets.
"A-Arisa," Catherine coughed, then cleared her throat. Her friend was in shock. "Arisa, get back to the car."
Arisa's mouth gaped as though her eyes were watching God.
NOTE.
Hey, everyone! It's been a while since I've updated. I am certainly not reluctant to write the story, but I've been struggling with time management since I started my new job, and I've got a lot to balance between my hobbies and my responsibilities. I actually had to write this during several different lunch breaks, as my job revolves around confidential information and I cannot bring anything from work home. I'm not dead, though! Much love to those who are bearing with me.