21
Tracy Island, present time and unsettled circumstance-
Others were back in the 'house', healing their fellows or taking sustenance. Not Kane and not Beech. The Mechanic was hunting, again. The Chaos-adept merely watched and stayed out of his way, as Kane prowled the airstrip; circling that battered and torn-apart mail shuttle.
His hornet drone had ceased to report, after a brief sensory flash of tumbling darkness, collision and cold, angry water. None of that should have finished his mech, meaning that at least one kanni was loose on the Island. Possibly more.
…and the Mechanic intended to track down and slaughter every last one.
He was on highest alert, scanning his surroundings in every part of the spectrum, sifting the air for the Hiro's particular scent when in 'form', as they put it. Everything that he looked at, from thin crescent moon, scattered wavery puddles and fast-streaming clouds to Cody Beech and the mail plane, was briefly centered in target-lock and surrounded by text. Useful, but Kane hunted for pleasure, mostly through instinct.
It was a warm, gusty night, with fretful spatters of rain. The surrounding jungle was largely silent, as though its inhabitants sensed that something had gone very wrong. Nothing could shut up the ocean and wind, though. Kane tuned them out, scanning for something quite other.
He proceeded warily, because the kanni could fire 'darts' that disrupted cellular structure; part of their own shape-shifting powers, but destructive to anyone not born a Hiro. How the h*ll they gained and lost mass, he hadn't yet solved, but the process left energy tracks, and those he could follow right to their source.
Quietly, moving lightly for so massive a cyborg, Kane approached the downed shuttle. Its cockpit was shredded; a torn, ragged wound in faint moonlight. The hull was peppered with holes, where his mechs had chewed their way in on approach. Mantis crouched on the shuttle's sensory node, keeping watch and streaming him even more data. Its smaller brethren, the winged ants, were still burrowing into the riddled mail plane, taking bits of this and scraps of that to feed and enlarge Ship. Looked like busy, pale crabs at an ocean-floor carcass. No sense wasting good metal.
"Stay here," he grunted at Beech, with a very slight turn of his tattooed head. "Or, not. Makes no difference to me."
Didn't wait to find out, anymore than he'd told the Tracys what he intended doing. Just fired his jetpack and launched himself into a low partial hover. Rain started up again, triggering his environment shield.
Whatever. He drifted up and into the air, after giving his senses a nano to adjust to that space-proof, transparent layer. Very quietly, using low-power ion thrust, the Mechanic eased over, and then down into, the wrecked shuttle, landing with a very slight thunk, in a three-point ready stance.
Scanned at various magnifications and wavelengths, taking in the scent of rain-washed blood and the energy trace of a mass shift. No… several of them, though the others were smaller and farther within.
Kane rose from his crouch, hearing the deck creak beneath him. More than that. He could feel Beech's power flowing around him; shifting potentials; nudging at fate.
Under the breath mask, Kane smiled just a little, sensing the wind in his face and terrified prey huddled nearby. Also spotted a laser-dot drifting here and there, red and sparkling, amidst all of that tumbled cargo. Ilya and probably Katrin, as well. Bloody h*ll. Like he needed an effing…
CRASH-SCREEEEEECH-SLAM!
Fast and sudden, energy flared from somewhere he couldn't see. Part of the bulkhead and jump seats ripped all at once free of the airframe, converting to snapping, stabbing, many-limbed things.
The Mechanic fired reflexively, blasting his jetpack to gain altitude on the situation. Tore right through the shuttle's overhead, letting in uneasy moonlight and furious drones.
The two kanni tried shifting to bird form, firing silvery force as they leapt. The Mechanic shot back. Mantis had dropped inside, meanwhile, slashing its blade arms. Ilya's rifle stuttered and buzzed, dissecting the unstable wreckage still further, giving their quarry no place to hide.
Kane had a rifle, too. Didn't use it this time; relying instead on the hand-mounted guns in his wristbands as he charged back down into the wreck. For an instant or so, the world was a hell of darts, laser bolts and force blasts. Of psi-torn metal and screeching, fast-shifting kanni. One, he obliterated entirely, leaving nothing but atoms. The other twisted and scurried, to be sliced in half by Mantis and blasted with unsteady… probably fired while running… laser-shot. D*mn disobedient kids.
A moment later, all was silent, but for hissing rain, straining metal, and wind whistling in through a hundred newly-made holes. That, and hurrying footsteps. Kane slammed an armoured boot on the last bit of shape-changer remaining, and fired again, leaving nothing but ash. Beech was halfway up the boarding ramp, shouting questions. The kids, not far behind.
The Mechanic ignored them all, turning his face to the sky and fighting the urge to bellow in triumph; alive and prickling to the ends of his bio-steel fingers. More Kanni were on their way. He could sense them, borne with the Tracys on home-speeding aircraft. Good. Let them come, let all of them rush him, at once. He'd be ready.
Stooping down, Kane swept his hand through the dust of a shape-shifter, brushing it onto his armour, then Beech's face, and his children's as well, when they poured through the hatchway and into that riddled cargo hold. Their kill, their battle as well.
Had no framework for what was inside of him, then, but it felt like a Tracy-thought: Thanks for the help.
Katrin wanted up, so he lifted the small blonde, feeling her patting and sorting him, inside and out. Ilya's rifle was slung halfway 'round, ready to use, but not in the way of throwing his arms around Kane's armoured waist.
Said Beech gazing at all this with his pale, wolf-like eyes… filled with questions but knowing better than to speculate aloud,
"The accord…"
"F*ck the accord," Kane rumbled. "They started it. I'll shut it down."
Cody dipped his head in assent. He was in this as well, now, up to his neck… just like the innocent Tracys.