Scar could still hear her shouting insults at him in both his language and her own inside his mask as he and Varrik ran down the corridor in the direction of the great hall. The abuse mingled with the sounds of battle coming from down in the main chamber. He shut out her voice and focussed instead on scanning the corridor ahead for the enemy.
As they ran the noise got louder and louder. They rounded the corner of the passage and saw the doorway that gave out onto the balcony around the hall. Standing at the railing with its back to them was a Bad Blood. Motioning to Varrik to follow he crept towards it. Looking past it into the hall, the scene that met his eyes was utter pandemonium. Rough Skulls were fighting desperately to drive back the invaders, but although more and more of his own clan were arriving all the time they were at a disadvantage. Three of the leeches had ranged themselves along the balcony that ran around the hall and were cutting a swathe through the defenders, picking them off with ease even as they entered.
He looked at the Bad Blood, its attention was bent on killing members of his clan who were coming in through the main doors below. As its gun pivoted round, homing in on its next target, he stepped up behind it. He glanced from side to side – one to his left, one to his right. He made sure to keep back far enough inside the passageway that they would not see him until it was too late, but they were so intent on their prey they didn't notice. He glanced across at Varrik, who stood opposite him, flattened against the wall. He jerked his head towards the Bad Blood on the left and saw the juvenile nod, very slightly. He appeared quite collected, the fight in the control room seemed to have calmed him, given him confidence. Bringing up the muzzle of his own plasma cannon he fired, hitting the Bad Blood in the back. It pitched off the balcony. As the other attackers turned at the noise, he swung around and shot the Bad Blood on their right, hurling it backwards along the walkway. Behind him he heard Varrik shoot the sniper to their left.
Springing up on the railing, he balanced there for a moment staring down at the struggling mass of bodies in the hall. For a second it seemed like he was suspended in a perfect void, the noises of battle drowned out by the silence in his head. Then he leapt, crashing down feet first onto the enemy directly beneath them. Hitting it in the shoulders with his full weight, he plunged his dah'kte into its spine as it smashed into the floor. Springing from atop its corpse onto the floor he saw Bad Bloods closing in on both sides. As the seductive delirium of battle crept over him, it seemed like their throats were offering themselves up to his blades willingly.
Lex stopped spitting insults at Scar and thought for a moment. She decided she'd better stop making so much noise. It wasn't getting her anywhere and it might draw attackers to the room. She glanced up at the venting tunnel they'd climbed in through. The Bad Blood's plasma blast had melted and fused the metal walls of the aperture leading off to the right to the point where she could not have wriggled through into the vent beyond. Standing on tiptoe and pulling herself up into the vent, an exploration of the left hand aperture revealed that the tunnel shrank down smaller and eventually became a dead end. The only vent tunnel running off it was a sheer drop vertically down into a darkness so deep that none of the masks vision settings could penetrate all the way to the bottom.
She dropped out of the vent onto the floor and wandered over to the main console turning over and over in her mind what had just happened. She was still seething at Scar's sudden betrayal – it felt like a betrayal anyway: locking her in here against her will and leaving her behind. She'd been hoping that once the alarm had been raised she might be able to persuade him that it was time for them to make their escape, let the rest of the clan finish the fighting.
"Of course the stupid Bonehead is never going to run away from a battle!" She brooded "OK, so he's a macho idiot – I knew that already – but he's trying to protect me, isn't he?" She began to pace the room, unable to shake off the sense of dread that was growing in her mind "I don't like the way he's been acting since he went into that infirmary. What if he gets himself killed out there?"
Standing over the console she squinted at the display on the screen. The green blips seemed to be gradually outnumbering the red ones. These controls seemed not to be too different to those on the shuttle. She pressed a few buttons, flicking through the different security cameras, trying to see if she could view what was going on in the hall on the screen. Images of corridors flickered across the screen, some of them empty, some of them filled with bodies. In none of them could she see Scar.
Her head twisted round as she heard a muffled thudding boom. The surface of the door shuddered as another blow struck it – it was under attack from outside. She looked desperately around the room. Still no obvious escape route presented itself. The metal was starting to buckle already.
"I should've known they'd try and get back in, this is the control room!" She cursed "What the hell was he thinking, trapping me in here?"
She checked her weapons, the plasma gun was operational still but she wasn't sure how many rounds were left in the pulse rifle and she had no spare ammo to reload. Casting around desperately for an escape route she backed away against the far wall, guns trained on the bulging surface of the door. To her horror she heard the sound of plasma shots and the warping metal eventually exploding inwards, fragments of molten alloy spattering onto the deck as a huge ragged hole appeared.
A huge masked head protruded through the gap and she fired, but the thing jerked backwards out of range at the noise and the shot hit the ruined doorframe in a shower of sparks. She levelled the gun again but as she did so a throwing star flew through the opening and rebounded, hitting her own plasma cannon. It was knocked out of her grip and skittered across the floor, far out of her reach. She yelped and grabbed the pulse rifle just as the gargantuan figure of the Bad Blood heaved itself through the hole in the door. As its plasma cannon swung round towards her, she blasted it in the shoulder with the pulse rifle – knocking the gun from its mounting and tearing into its flesh. It bellowed with rage, surging forward into the control room. There wasn't time to get the plasma gun back and she had no way of knowing if it would still work with the throwing star embedded in the barrel so she scrambled desperately into the vent. Sheer adrenalin gave her the strength to heave herself back up the wall in a matter of seconds and she scrambled as fast as she could down the passage, in the direction of the downward tunnel. The hands of the Bad Blood scrabbled at the metal where her feet had been moments before. It roared again and tried to pull itself into the tunnel in its hunger to get at her. She retreated back further, the vent shrinking smaller the further she went. It followed slowly, moving with difficulty in the confined space. Lifting the pulse rifle to defend herself, she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"Work – damn you!" She screamed and pulled desperately at the mechanism, hoping against hope that it was merely jammed again "Come on, come on!" she pleaded, but a brief inspection of the chamber confirmed her worst fears – it was out of bullets. As the growling thing dragged itself closer. She moved her hands to the dart launcher trigger and fired. The big, black dart shot out and stuck in the hollow between the Bad Blood's shoulder and its neck. It bellowed at her. The noise hurt her ears as it echoed round the metal walls of the vent tunnel, the thing increasing its frenzied attempts to reach her. It was so angry that it actually managed to shoulder part of the damaged metal wall aside, bending it to make a wider opening.
She fired again and again. Three of the darts lodged in its arms and shoulders but the gun was now empty. She wobbled unsteadily as her heels came right up against the edge of the downward vent. There was nowhere else to go but the long drop into the darkness. She let the useless gun clatter to the floor and unsheathed her dah'kte, wondering frantically how long it would be before the tranquilisers took effect. She remembered it had taken about half an hour for Scar to go under, but she had no way of knowing if they would even work on a hunter as big as this one. She eyed the hole in desperation, she could try and climb down, but if she fell – an involuntarily shriek escaped her as huge, clawed hands scrabbled at the metal only a few feet away.
Down in the main hall, Scar's head jerked up suddenly and he froze as he heard Lex scream through the masks intercom. Around him, the tide of the battle had turned. The corpses of the invaders were piling up steadily and the defenders of his own clan were engaged in wiping out the few that remained.
In his ear he could hear Lex's voice panting, her breathing coming out in harsh gasps and in the background an infuriated roar. The noise cut through his killing frenzy and he pulled his blades from the corpse of an enemy, letting it topple to the ground. A chill ran through him and for the first time since his infancy he knew the sickening grip of real fear.
Without a backward glance he turned and ran towards the passage that led to the control room. Scaling up the wall to the balcony like a spider he vaulted over the railing and sprinted down the corridor back towards the source of the noise, her screams resounding maddeningly in his ears. To him it seemed they were becoming more frantic with every passing second. Each new shriek was like a knife in his brain as he ran faster than he'd ever done before "What the hells is happening to her?" he thought as he ran "Why in the name of stupidity did I leave her trapped in there on her own?"
As he neared the control room he could see even from a distance the ruined door, just as he'd seen at the infirmary. Dreading what he might see next, he plunged inside and saw the Bad Blood trying to squeeze itself into the vent. Incensed beyond reason he seized hold of it by the waist. Hauling it bodily out of the opening, he threw it across the room, sending it smacking into the wall. Too enraged to even think of using his weapons or exercise any caution at all, he punched it hard in the face, cracking its faceplate. The Bad Blood fell back under the onslaught, staggering as he hit it again and again, smashing its head on the wall with his bare hands. He saw that its claws and wrist-blades were smeared with red, human blood but that just infuriated him even more. In the grip of his fury he didn't even think it strange that the giant seemed unable to mount a serious counter-attack. It tried to hit him, but it seemed disorientated. The struggle ended when it finally toppled to the floor, sliding down the wall into unconsciousness. Immediately he turned towards the vent, stomach clenched in a poisonous knot.
To his almost overwhelming relief he saw Lex's masked face emerge cautiously from the ravaged vent opening. When she saw it was him she dragged herself into view and held out her arms to him, beckoning him.
He went over and seized her outstretched fingers, the first part of her he could reach. Her tiny, human hands were totally engulfed by his larger ones. He gripped them tightly for a moment, to reassure himself that he could feel the blood pulsing in them. Then he pulled her out of the vent, probably too quickly but he wanted to look at her. She'd been injured – he could see it now. Bright, red claw marks and blade cuts scored her arms and legs and she was trembling with adrenalin, but her dah'kte blades were also green with blood. Now he glanced at the Bad Blood's arms he could see the injuries she'd inflicted. It had lost a finger or two.
"Speak! You are not… badly hurt are you?" He'd fully expected to come in and find her either dead or dying – fatally wounded like R'Zuul or just a broken, bloodied heap like the juveniles on the lower deck.
"I'll be OK in a moment." She mumbled in English, so indistinctly that he could hardly understand her. He pulled off her mask so that he could study her face. She didn't try to stop him. Her skin was almost grey and covered in sweat. Her eyelids fluttered in a way that suggested she might pass out. "My injuries aren't serious, it's just…." She winced as a spasm of pain passed through her, that horrible lurch in her abdomen again. "Put me down." She said eventually "I will be alright."
He lowered her reluctantly to the floor, setting her on her feet. She leaned against him for a moment, then stood unaided, still swaying unsteadily. A sound made him look round. The Bad Blood had shifted slightly where it had collapsed against the wall, though it was obviously still unconscious. For the first time he noticed the darts sticking out of its shoulders.
He looked back at Lex. As he regarded the garish, bloody cuts on her arms and her shaking legs, he felt a tingling sensation in his brain as if it were full of bubbles. "It was going to kill her," he thought "A pregnant female! It was going to kill her and my offspring along with her."
The hissing and fizzing inside his skull became more intense, mounting higher and higher, louder and louder, until he thought he couldn't bear it. Then all at once, the awful noise ceased and all was still. He stood up straight, suddenly decisive, and walked over to the Bad Blood. Taking hold of its arms he began to drag it along the floor down to the main hall. It was heavy but he didn't care. He heard Lex calling after him, asking what he was doing. He ignored her and continued down the corridor until he reached the hall. All was quiet in there now, apart from the buzz of talk which stopped when he appeared on the balcony. He looked down to see members of his own clan crowded around. Gazing about he could see many of them were wounded, there were also a great many of their bodies mixed up with that of the invaders.
"S'Kia!" Someone called from down in the hall, looking for the source of the noise he realised it was Rika, Varrik standing next to him. Scar said nothing but continued to drag the unconscious Bad Blood along the walkway towards the stairs "S'Kia, you crazy bug fucker – what are you doing?! It is over – do you not realise? We are victorious!"
Scar ignored him, but carried on lugging the body down the the bottom he slung the Bad Blood on the floor, looking up into the puzzled faces of the other hunters as they approached him cautiously. Even though he had technically saved all their lives, he noted contemptuously that they were still reluctant to come near him. Only Rika walked over without hesitation and smacked him in the shoulder "What is wrong with you? We have won – we are alive and the leeches are all dead! We have their ship. And from what that juvenile Varrik has been saying they should make you a captain!"
Scar didn't respond to his friend's manner. Instead he nodded to two of the other unharmed hunters who were standing nearby, watching him. "You two! Take this…. thing and string it up from that balcony by its arms and legs." He jerked his head towards the unconscious Bad Blood. When they didn't immediately move he made as if to lunge at them "Now!" he snarled.
Both of them lowered their heads in submission and busied themselves following his of the corner of his eye he saw Lex emerge from the corridor onto the balcony and turned to watch her as she made her way down the steps. She was no longer shaking and pale – the emotionless mask was back in place – at the sight of the bloody wounds and scratches on her skin his brow drew down and he growled deep in his throat.
"S'Kia, it is over!" Rika said in an undertone, taking hold of his arm "The leech is out cold – either despatch him or put him in the brig and let the council deal with him."
Scar didn't answer him. Instead he looked at the unconscious Bad Blood as the other two males hoisted it up by the arms and drew a long, thin knife, fingering the point of the blade thoughtfully.
The Bad Blood woke up when Scar punched it hard in the jaw. He'd taken off its mask and its armour. He'd also pulled the darts out of its shoulder, not wanting any residual sedatives they might contain to prolong its unconsciousness. Its head rolled from one side to the other for a moment and then its little red eyes snapped open, focussing on him.
Lex, standing behind him at a safe distance, regarded its face with distaste. Without its mask she could see now why the Rough Skulls called them leeches. Looking at him and Scar side by side you could see they were a similar species, but there were significant differences. Its jaws were bigger and opened out wider, so that the mouth always gaped open slightly, revealing the wet, pink interior in a way that was faintly obscene. The forehead was different too, criss-crossed with many veiny lines. Instead of the big, heavy, ridged brows that Scar's clan had, this one's brow simply swept back straight into his neck. The overall effect did remind her of a leech or maybe some sort of weird, undersea life-form.
It struggled for a moment but it needn't have bothered. It was spread-eagled, hanging by its pinioned arms that were tied securely to the railings of the balcony. Its legs were also bound – pulled taut and secured to the floor by chains that had been skewered into place.
It raised its chin to look at him angrily. "Release me … insect!" it rasped "Or I will make you regret it!"
Scar looked up calmly into the blazing eyes "I think not." He said slowly "I rather think it is you who will regret coming here."
"Coward!" The Bad Blood hissed "You only dare to threaten me as I am tied up. If you had any courage you would fight me honourably. You only defeated me because I was drugged by your pet ooman!"
"Oh yes, I remember," Scar raised his brows, his voice was quite calm but with an odd undertone "You were going to kill her, yes? And she is so much smaller than you. And pregnant."
"And so?!" It snarled at him "When I get free from here you little vermin, I will strip the skin from her back and rip the young from her living body – before I kill you."
"Skin her?" Scar sounded almost amused, eyes glowing.
"Yesss, peel her like a piece of fruit!" The Bad Blood grinned, bloody saliva drooling from its jaws "Then I will deal with you, pathetic excuse for a male!"
Scar cocked his head on one side, as if considering "I think that is not what is going to happen. I think, instead, you are going to tell me all about your cloaking devices that can make you invisible to our thermal vision and your plans to destroy us – before I kill you."
"What makes you think that?" The Bad Blood gurgled with laughter.
"Because I am going to give you two options," Scar purred softly "You are going to die. But I can make it easy or I can make it very difficult. If you tell me –"
"I fear not pain!" The Bad Blood growled, jutting its head forward.
" – all I wish to know," Scar continued, ignoring it "I will kill you quickly. It is more than you deserve. If you do not… you will suffer."
"I care not for your threats!" The invader howled "Do what you wish, you cannot frighten me into betraying my clan!"
Lex watched Scar uneasily. She wasn't sure what he was planning but an unpleasant suspicion was forming in her mind. The room was very quiet, despite many of the males of Scar's clan who remained, looking on. Scar shrugged and, drawing his long knife, looked the creature up and down for a moment as if considering. Then he stepped forward and drew the blade of the knife up the inside of the Bad Bloods calf in a business-like way, the point only cutting an inch or so into the dark flesh. He made the shallow cut all the way from its ankle to its knee. Then he began cutting round the knee joint, making the same shallow incision all the way round the circumference of the leg. The creature didn't make any noise, but its jaws clenched together in pain and its leg jerked and trembled as it struggled to pull itself free. Through it all Scar was utterly silent, showing no more emotion than if he were butchering a pig, something she'd seen him do many times. He just carried on unhurriedly cutting. It took a few minutes for him to work his way all around the limb back down to the ankle.
Lex watched in stunned revulsion. She'd thought herself inured to violence by now but watching the thing suffer was truly horrible. It was like a nightmare, and try as she might she couldn't tear her eyes away. She wanted to tell him to stop, but the words somehow froze in her throat. She could see that he wouldn't listen. He was in the grip of something she didn't understand.
When he'd finished cutting to his satisfaction Scar took a hold of the bleeding edge of the skin and pulled. There was a sickening sound of rending tissue and the hide of the Bad Blood's calf came away in one big, bloody, piece. The creature's huge frame shook. It clenched its jaws even tighter to try and stop from making any noise, its breathing laboured with pain, but finally an agonised grunt escaped it.
Scar raised his fist in front of the Bad Blood's face, shaking the flayed section of skin that dangled from it like a gory piece of rubber so that drops of blood rained down onto the metal deck. He brought his own face close to the stricken creature's head so that he could speak softly in its ear.
"Still do not feel like talking to me?" He hissed. The Bad Blood shook its head, still twitching with shock "Are you sure? Because this is going to get worse. And you are so big, it is going to take me a long time to get it all off."
There was a ripple of nasty laughter from some of the watching crowd of hunters. Of those that remained silent, many stood smirking or looking on with grim satisfaction. Rika was one of the few who did not share their amusement but watched his friend uneasily.
"Nar'Jat will not like this, S'Kia!" He said quietly.
"That is right," Another male, one called Vassir said "The council will want to interrogate him themselves, will they not? They will be displeased if you kill him!"
Scar turned on them with a demonic glare "Where is Nar'Jat? Or the council? They are not here!" He snarled "But I am here. So I would shut your jaws, unless you both want to fight me as well! Besides," He added nastily "I plan to keep him alive for some time yet…"
Lex walked quickly down the corridor, away from the main hall. She didn't want to run in case she drew attention to herself. Only when she knew she was out of earshot and there was no-one else around she wrenched off her mask as she doubled up. Leaning her hands against the wall she vomited onto the deck, heaving until there was nothing left in her stomach. Then she burst into silent tears, sliding to her knees and covering her face with her hands.
Her mind was reeling in horror. She simply couldn't bring herself to accept that Scar could do something so awful to another living thing, one of his own kind no less. She'd seen him kill before, other humans even, but it had always been in the heat of battle. This was different.
It wasn't even as if he'd seemed to take any kind of sadistic pleasure from it, unlike some of the onlookers who'd been standing round urging him on, but somehow the detached way he'd tortured the Bad Blood had disturbed her more. He just kept on implacably inflicting pain until it told him the information he wanted.
She hadn't been able to stay and watch to the end, it was unbearable. Even some of the other hunters had seemed uncomfortable. She could hardly believe that he was the same person she'd known all this time. Of course she'd always known deep down that he'd never travelled very far from the violent credo of his species, but sometimes he was so unlike them she'd ignored the aspects of his personality that she didn't wish to see. Now, witnessing his cold-blooded cruelty with her own eyes, she felt sickened.
She stayed on her knees for a while until she was sure she wasn't going to vomit any more, unable to think clearly. When she raised her eyes and looked around her, she could barely see her surroundings through the fog of misery. It took her a few minutes to realise that she was back outside the control room again. At first, she was too desolate to do anything except stare at the door in front of her "I have to get away from here!" She thought "I thought I could do this but I can't! I have to escape from him – he's totally insane!"
Gradually as she sat looking at the door an idea began to take shape in her mind. "I have to get out of here before he realises what I'm planning or he'll never let me go!" she thought "Now! Whilst they are all distracted." She pushed herself to her feet and staggered into the control room, looking down at the corpses of the invaders she bit her lip. They were still wearing their cloaking devices. They looked heavy and unwieldy but God knew one of these things would come in handy if she was to get off this ship before Scar caught up with her. The line of her jaw hardened in determination as she went to the nearest body and began hurriedly tugging at the straps that held the device on its back.
Lex finally managed to drag the rest of her stuff on board the Umbra. She'd wanted to leave as quickly as possible but she'd had sufficient presence of mind to realise that it would do no good to go without food, water, weapons or clothes. That meant picking her way back through the blood soaked quarter deck to the room and gathering up her belongings. At any moment she'd expected Scar or some other hunter to accost her, ask what she was doing. If she saw anyone but him, she reasoned she could just lie, but she knew Scar would be immediately suspicious. He knew her too well.
The Bad Blood's cloaking device she had strapped across her own back now. It was heavy, but not unmanageably so. If she hadn't been pregnant it wouldn't have been a problem at all but as things stood it did slow her down.
She chose the Umbra because it was the shuttle she was certain she knew how to fly. The controls on the others were probably not too different but she decided it was better to be on the safe side. She checked the ships engines, life-support, fuel supply and other systems before take off and when she was satisfied, flipped the control that began to open the huge landing bay doors. She did all this almost on automatic, scarcely daring to think about what she was doing. A superstitious, irrational dread seized her that if she thought about it consciously Scar would somehow know what she was planning.
She sat in the pilots chair as the Umbra blasted off into space and bit her nails anxiously. Even now, part of her wanted to turn the ship around and go back, just forget all about what he'd done. After all, he was her only ally – without him she was utterly alone. She found her hand hovering over the controls to turn the shuttle more than once but she forced herself not to. She guessed that she could probably reach Earth or some other planet with an atmosphere within a week or two and she had enough supplies to last until then.
She sat watching the stars slide past, until the crushing weight of fear and misery caused her vision to blur again. She shuddered and pulled the jaguar skin more tightly round her shoulders.
Scar was virtually asleep on his feet when he arrived back at his room on the living deck. The rest of the clan were exultant and after a battle was one of the few occasions when widespread intoxication was even tolerated. The council had been pleased with him for getting the information they wanted. He'd watched detachedly for a while as other males got legless – either working themselves into a frenzy of excitement or numbing the pain of their injuries with the strong, clear liquid that was the main drug of choice for his species. Officially of course, stupefying oneself with toxins was not ever permitted (what use would you be to the clan then), but there was always some ingenious individual who would use whatever ingredients they could find to make the stuff and usually it wasn't too hard to get hold of it. Technically it was what humans would call moonshine, and it was lethal – usually any adult male would only require about 100 ml to become thoroughly drunk. Not being used to it and having a problem metabolising alcohol anyway, his was not a species who could hold their liquor.
He'd left as soon as he could extricate himself, picking his way past insensible bodies, and made his way back to the quarter deck. He was exhausted, his mind numbed by hours of exertion and violence. He almost felt like he was waking up after an illness. His recall of the fight and its aftermath were somewhat confused, like a fever dream. Whenever he tried to piece it together chronologically the strands of it kept drifting away from him. Muddled snippets of memory filtered through; R'Zuul's dead eyes; blood pouring down onto his face until it filled up his vision; Lex screaming in his ear; that leech bastard screaming for mercy for days on end, or so it had seemed to him. "Why could he not just tell me?" He thought dully "Why did he make me do all of that to him?"
He pushed the control to open the door, stepping wearily over the body of the invader that lay just outside the threshold. He would deal with him after sleep. He hadn't seen Lex in a few hours. He guessed that she'd slipped out of the great hall at some point whilst he was interrogating the Bad Blood and thought she would probably have come back here to rest.
Normally such weakness would have disgusted him but he supposed he couldn't blame her. Surely she was to be admired for withstanding so much stress and suffering so near the end of her pregnancy.
Disappointed flooded him when he opened the door and the room was empty. Not that he would ever had admitted it to anyone, but the events of the past few hours had stretched him to the very limits of his endurance. All he wanted to do was be near to her and go to sleep. For some reason he couldn't explain, he craved physical contact with her, to still the buzzing noise that had started up again inside his brain.
He sat on the bench and ran his hands through his plaits, which were stiff with congealed gore. Every inch of his skin was thickly smeared with blood and filth. Bits of flesh clung to his armour and under his talons, but he was too tired to go and wash it off as he knew he should. He was too tired to sleep or think or do anything other than stare at the floor. After a little while his eye was drawn to something lying in the middle of the room. He had been too burned out to register it on his way in but now he realised he'd been staring at the thing for a while without really seeing it. Frowning he reached down and picked it up. Now he could see it was Lex's wrist-com. Why was it here, on the floor?
He sat looking at it in perplexity, turning it over in his talons. Had someone taken her prisoner? Maybe there were some of the enemy lurking on this deck, undetected… but there was no other sign of a struggle inside the room.
After a while an unwelcome idea began to steal over him. Getting up sluggishly he went to the compartment in the wall where she kept her belongings; clothes, boots, weapons, and wrenched it open. It was empty of all her things. The rest of the room was the same, not a single item of hers remained, except the gauntlet. He stood leaning against the wall and looking down at the cylinder of metal that lay in his outstretched palm.
"Who would take her possessions? Has this been left here deliberately for me to find?" He tried to bludgeon his tired brain into some sort of rational thought "I should go and look for her, what if she has been taken prisoner … but no, that does not make sense." He thought, brow wrinkling as he tried to concentrate "Even if she were taken prisoner, why would anyone bother to take her things as well?"
Suddenly the realisation struck him, with such force that he almost staggered: she had taken them. It could only have been her! With total clarity he understood that the only reason she would clear everything out like this would be if she was planning on leaving. Not just leaving the ship – she surely could've told him about that – leaving him. And she had left the wrist-com behind because she knew he could use it to find her.
His fist tightened around it until the metal edge began to cut into his palm. Until the blood began to dribble down his wrist, mingling with the flaking grime already plastered on his skin.
It was some hours later when Nar'Jat and Khurshad came to find him. They made their way down the corridor of the quarter deck. The lights were still flickering on and off occasionally, the Void Cutter's systems not being entirely restored to normal running. They picked their way down corridors littered with bodies, both Bad Blood and Rough Skull. They'd come in search of Scar, to talk to him about his part in repelling the invaders and getting them the information they wanted.
As they entered the passage that contained the room occupied by Scar and the ooman, Nar'Jat noted that the walls were splattered with a large amount of blood – even more so than the rest of the ship. The Bad Blood's corpses in particular seemed to have been severely mutilated and all of them had obviously been decapitated. Their heads were nowhere to be seen, which was strange.
When they reached Scar's quarters, the door was open but the interior was too dark to see inside since neither of them was wearing his mask. Nar'Jat reached inside the door and pressed the control to bring up the lights, but nothing happened. They stepped inside cautiously. After a second or two, they could make out that Scar was standing with his back to them at the window, head and splayed talons resting against the glass. The room was in chaos. Every piece of furniture had been wrecked or bent out of shape, the walls were dented from many frenzied blows and every single lighting panel had been smashed. Bits of broken glass, weaponry and armour were strewn over every inch of the floor.
"S'Kia?" Khurshad began "What in all the hells…" he trailed off as Scar turned slowly in the direction of the noise.
"What do youuuu warrnt?" The younger male snarled aggressively. It was obvious that he was blind drunk. Now that the eyes of both council members adjusted to the dim light, they saw that the room was not just littered with broken bits of furniture and glass. A strange charnel smell hung in the air, making Nar'Jat turn to look for the source. He soon found it. The walls and floor were sticky with blood and in the corner there lay the decapitated heads of many Bad Bloods, the deck underneath them stained with phosphorescent green smears. Nar'Jat guessed now that this must be what had happened to the bodies out in the corridor. Now he came to look at him, Scar seemed to be even more bloodied than when he'd last seen him up in the main hall.
Scar glared at the two senior males belligerently as they gazed around the room in mounting puzzlement. For the first time in his short life, he was utterly plastered. Since discovering Lex's wristcom on the floor of the room he'd ventured back out into the ship. A cursory inspection of the landing bay confirmed his worst suspicions. The Umbra was gone – he guessed she had taken it. There could be no other explanation. After that it had taken him very little time to locate several small containers of liquid intoxicant. At least for today, he only had to give an order to have it obeyed. Whether this was due to fear or respect or both he neither knew nor cared. He dragged himself back to his quarters, unable to face speaking to anyone else and drank them all one after another until he could no longer see straight.
Now he was barely coherent. He began to realise the intruders were still there, still looking at him.
"Oh… jusssst get…out!" He said swaying, his voice thick with booze "Leave me alone!"
"Silence, drunken moron!" Khurshad barked at him "What in the name of the Blood God have you been doing? This place stinks like a slaughter house – "
"Khurrrrrrrshad," Scar's voice lowered to a threatening hiss as he recognised the older male"I did not see you fight in the main hall – did you have a more pressssssing engagement?"
Nar'Jat held up a cautionary hand to cut off Khurshad's furious reply, though he could feel his second in command boiling silently next to him. It was obvious to him that Scar was beyond inebriated and, in all probability, was not aware of what he was saying. Drunken rampages were not unknown in a society where alcohol was so infrequently used – the younger males just weren't used to it – but several things about this scenario bothered the clan leader. Mutilating the bodies of the dead to take trophies – that was perfectly acceptable – but dragging stinking pieces of carrion into ones sleeping quarters? This was definitely not normal behaviour. He'd always thought Scar unpredictable and erratic but now he thought perhaps he'd underestimated how deranged the younger male truly was.
"What are you doing S'Kia?" He said, as if conversing perfectly normally "You have helped us win a great victory – but you are not happy."
"What are you talking about?" Scar stared at him for a few seconds, as if confused. Nar'Jat saw now how bloodshot his eyes were, the veins standing out green and vivid against the yellow. Then he began to laugh, hysterically, leaning over and clutching his ribs. The two council members watched him in astonishment, waiting whilst his laughter gave way to stuttering heaves.
"You think I should… be happy about… that?" He gasped, fixing them both with a venomous glare "You know nothing…"
Nar'Jat and Khurshad exchanged a glance "You should be happy for this opportunity to prove your loyalty the clan." Nar'Jat said quietly.
"Fuck the clan!" Scar spat "Get out and leave me alone!"
"Why are we wasting our time speaking to this ...lunatic?" Khurshad snorted in disgust "You would get more sense out of his ooman pet – "
At his last words Scar's voice became a menacing growl and he lurched unsteadily forward, squaring his shoulders as he faced Khurshad.
"Do not everrr mention herrrrr in my presence again!" He hissed, eyes bulging madly, the tendons standing out like cords in his neck "Or I will kill you wherrrre you stand!"
"How dare you threaten me, you deviant?!" Khurshad roared at him "I should have killed you back on board the shuttle!"
"Come on then imbecile!" Scar slurred back "I would welcome death at yourrrr hands if I thought you were actually capable of it!" At this disrespect, Khurshad bellowed with rage and struck Scar across the jaw, knocking him violently backwards against the wall. Scar recovered his balance surprisingly fast for one who'd appeared incapable with drink only seconds ago and leapt for Khurshad's throat. He hit the senior male in the chest and slammed him into the door frame. Khurshad gagged, partly because one of the younger hunter's hands was tightening around his throat and partly because of the overpowering smell of alcohol mingled with the sickly scent of dead flesh that clung to him. Scar's eyes glittered crazily as he tried to get both his hands into throttling position, obviously not seeing what was in front of him. Luckily, he was too inebriated to get a grip and Khurshad had the advantage of being relatively sober, although he was still having trouble fending him off.
There was a hollow thud and Scar's grip suddenly went slack as Nar'Jat brought a torn part of the metal sleeping bench down on the back of his head. The lights went out in his eyes and he crumpled onto the floor. Khurshad unsheathed his own wrist-blades and would have finished him off when Nar'jat put a restraining hand on his arm.
"You cannot mean to let him live!?" His second-in-command fumed "After what he said to me!?"
"He is not here, his mind is off… wandering in void. Let him sleep it off." Nar'Jat shook his head.
"He insulted your honour and mine! Him!" Khurshad spat. He was shaking with anger, but his deference to Nar'Jat meant that he made no further move towards the comatose younger male.
"He will not remember – and nor should you." His leader said calmly, holding up one talon to still any further protest "If it were not for him it is very likely this whole ship would have been destroyed just like the Shadow, did you consider that?"
"We would have fought them off somehow. In the name of all that is holy, why do you always allow this maniac such license when he shows us no respect?!"
Nar'Jat shook his head wearily "Do you think I do it for his benefit? Khurshad, you more than any other should know I never throw away useful things – and S'Kia has been very useful." He sighed and gazed down at the younger male's unconscious form, considering "You saw and heard how he flayed the leech alive – tore his skin right off his living body?" Khurshad subsided mutinously and nodded, waiting for his superior to go on "More than half the ship is in fear of him, even more so now. I do not pretend to understand what drives him but – "
"It is the ooman witch!" Khurshad burst out, unable to contain himself any longer.
"Hrrmmm." Nar'Jat sounded thoughtful "I wonder what has become of her. Perhaps she died in the battle."
"Or S'Kia killed her!" Khurshad said with feeling "If he has at least that is one sane thing he has done!"
"Perhaps." Nar'Jat looked down at Scar again "As for him, anything that strikes fear into the heart of our enemies is a weapon I will not easily relinquish. Do you understand?"
Khurshad nodded, more uncertainly this time. He'd always found Nar'Jat's intelligence intimidating. It was why he was the leader and Khurshad the lieutenant, even though Khurshad was bigger and stronger. As long as he could remember, Nar'Jat had always been the same. His skills as a warrior were underpinned by an unscrupulous intellect that used others for its own ends with total, cold-blooded ruthlessness. Khurshad found his thoughts difficult to fathom but followed him, for the most part unquestioningly.
"We have their ship. We have their cloaking devices. We now know how they got onto the Shadow undetected." Nar'Jat continued "But better than any of this we know their strategy. If the information S'Kia gained is correct, they are planning a major offensive on our territory and we now know which of our planetoids they are using as a base, doubtless concealed by this new technology…."
"What is in your mind?" Khurshad said.
"Clearly, we must send a squad to Hirai where the Bad Bloods are preparing their shock troops." Nar'Jat placed a hand on his arm "And I think you are the one to lead it."
"Yesssss!" Khurshad's eyes fairly glowed at the prospect "Let me go there – I will grind them into powder!"
"And you will take S'Kia with you," Nar'Jat said "As one of your squad."
"This… filthy…?" Khurshad's jaws hung open as words finally failed him, unable to think of an expletive bad enough "You cannot mean it!"
"Certainly I mean it. I am not in the habit of making jokes." Nar'Jat said, calmly ignoring his horrified look "On this ship S'Kia is a disruptive influence, an unpredictable menace. But imagine what havoc he could wreak amongst the Bad Bloods if we unleash him there." He waved a hand to indicate the heads piled on the floor "Let him spend his insane wrath upon them."
Khurshad's voice spluttered into life again, his indignation overcoming shock "But he is insubordinate! A degenerate! Without honour or scruples or loyalty! Without control!"
"Then you must learn to control him, as R'Zuul could not." Nar'Jat tilted his head "Think of him as… a weapon, at your disposal. You must make use of him."
He laughed finally, seeing Khurshad's pained expression "But if he does not survive…. it is no great matter."
Lex had almost fallen asleep sitting at the shuttle controls. The trauma of the last few days coupled with the physical strain of pregnancy had exhausted her. She had risked the odd uneasy catnap, relying on the autopilot to alert her if anything went wrong or if she was approached, but she hadn't been able to truly rest. Once or twice she found her head rolling forward and shook herself, determinedly trying to stay awake. Again and again she found herself debating whether to go back, wondering if she hadn't made an enormous mistake.
"I've got to sleep sometime." She thought "I can't stay awake for weeks on end. And even if I could, it's not going to be more than a week or two before I go into labour." Even the thought of it brought her out in a cold sweat "What was I thinking? At least back on the ship I could have got medical help, well perhaps… something like it anyway. And Scar would have tried to help me. Whatever else he might be, he's totally obsessed with his "offspring". He wouldn't let anything happen to it. Now I'll be alone, totally alone. Unless I can make it back to Earth and that's not likely, not before…. Oh God! How could I ever think facing that on my own would be the best option?"
Eventually she couldn't keep awake any longer and dozed fretfully, the autopilot flying the ship whilst she twitched in the pilots chair. A beeping noise from the console brought her back to consciousness with a jolt. As she gazed at the screen she realised in dismay that she was about to come under attack, two hostile ships had been picked up by the scanner. In a few minutes they'd be right on top of her.
She pressed controls wildly, trying to think what to do. One – she might have taken her chances in a fire-fight – but two? Not such great odds. Her brain seemed to freeze up for a few seconds as she watched the little red dots creeping ever closer to her position. Suddenly she snapped back to reality and laid hold of the controls, snapping off the autopilot with the flick of a switch. She pushed the steering column forward and boosted the engines, hoping vainly that she might be able to outrun them and at the same time started scanning the space ahead. She was looking for an asteroid belt or a planetoid, anything that might afford some cover so that she could evade them and escape.
As she sped away from them the two enemy ships suddenly increased their own velocity. She'd obviously been spotted. As she desperately scanned the space ahead, the blinking display alerted her to the presence of a large-ish planetoid in the top right-hand sector of the screen. She zoomed in to reveal a purplish-blue world, swirling with clouds. It wasn't Earth, even at this distance she could see that, but the computer told her it had a breathable atmosphere and a survivable temperature. She zeroed in on it desperately, pushing the engines to their very limit.
As she neared its orbit the first fighter screamed down on her, and she pulled the Umbra about in a tight curve, narrowly avoiding the plasma fire that just missed her right engine. As she looped round it shot past her across her flight path and she returned fire taking out its left turbine in a flash of blue light, scorching and blackening its metal hull. These ships were bigger than hers, she realised, but not as manoeuvrable. Before it could swing round upon her again she adjusted her aim and hit its right engine. There was a blinding flash and the resulting blast rocked the Umbra, tossing it around like a bead inside a rattle. Mercifully the shaking subsided after a moment but her relief didn't last long. As the Umbra barrelled towards the planet, the second ship was already upon her. It opened fire and she just had time to dart to one side, the plasma volley partially damaged one of the shuttle's wings. The Umbra juddered. Its flight was not affected, but she cursed all the same. As Scar had explained to her, the wings were not needed for space flight, but for landing in a planet's atmosphere.
Lex turned the ship and gunned the engine to the very limit of its capability as the fighter swung round for another try. She sped towards it, willing herself not to blink until the computer detected the other ships guns locking onto her position, then she pushed the controls violently – causing the Umbra to lurch to one side again, out of the firing line. As she did so she engaged her own targeting system and hit them right in the engine cooling unit. She smiled grimly, a good shot. "They're done for! Who says I can't shoot straight?" she exclaimed – she could see the metal starting to overheat and buckle as the unit died. Her elation proved to be premature, as the stricken ship opened fire on her again, this time scoring a partial hit on her own left hand side.
The whole shuttle shook again and she had to fight to maintain control as terror gripped her. Veering sharply away from the enemy ship she wrenched at the controls, forcing the Umbra down towards the planet before they could hit her again. The shuttle was buffeted about a second time as the enemy ship detonated behind her, pushing her down towards the atmosphere with even greater speed.
She gritted her teeth and strapped herself into the pilots seat. She'd never landed one of these things on a planet before, but it was too late to worry about that now.
The Umbra shook as it entered the atmosphere, so violently she thought the ship might actually come apart. As the shuttle screamed down towards the ground the ships computer brought up display after display, mapping the topography of the ground as she searched desperately for a place to land. The terrain seemed to be some sort of jungle, uncountable miles of forest flashed past underneath her. The altitude of the craft was dropped rapidly and as gravity took hold it became difficult to steer. She pulled up on the steering column and punched the downward jets to try and slow her descent.
As the ground rose up inexorably to meet her, the cockpit jolted violently. Thick branches battered the front windscreen, breaking and snapping against the reinforced glass. Her head bounced against the back of the chair and her teeth rattled in her jaw. She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled into a ball as much as she was able to whilst still strapped into the chair, covering her midriff with her arms.