"I hate you."
I looked up, surprised. The test subject had spoken for the first time in cycles, and in near-flawless Urtragian.
"Fascinating," I said. "How long have you been able to do that?"
There was no response. I peered into her cell. Her eyes were locked onto mine, twisted in a furious glare.
"So you've grown an Urtragian voice box. Tell me, did it transfigure from your old one, or grow like a new tumor and take up its purpose?"
Again there was no answer, and her eyes remained focused on me, enraged and unblinking.
I averted my gaze, going back to my work. "No matter. either way it stands to reason that your old one is defunct. I've barely heard a peep from you in years. And here I thought you'd merely learned to behave yourself."
"I hate you," she spat once more.
"Is that all you can say? Seven cycles here and all you've managed to pick up is three words."
"I'm going to get out of here, and I will kill you. I will make you suffer," the little mutant hissed. "I'll infect you with my own blood. Yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll see how you tolerate a phazon infection."
I met her gaze, amused by her hubris. "Will you now? Well with any luck I won't be vulnerable to infection by then, thanks to you, of course."
"You're never getting it out of me," she spat. "I know what you're doing. Your plan is stupid. You'll just make yourself into a broken mess like me and then die."
I smiled. "Such cockiness. You are a child, and you are ignorant," I punched in a command to the console, preparing a serum for the new segment of DNA I had isolated.
"I don't care. I will still kill you. I will carve your eyes right out of your head," she growled, her voice rising. "I'll- I'll cut your head open and chop off your hands. I'll rip your heart out and-" she stopped suddenly, her expression turning nauseous. She opened her mouth and vomited up a sizable amount of blood. She groaned, her face distorted in pain. At least she had stopped talking.
"Now now, you'll only stress yourself thinking like that. You're fragile enough as it is, you know," I said, taking a now-full syringe.
It was true, she was still fragile. She was violently sick quite often, though she had made remarkable progress. She was more or less self-sufficient, with most of her old life-support systems now unneeded.
"Ready for another test?" I asked facetiously. Her pained expression twisted into a vicious scowl as she glared up at me with those luminous, now-yellow eyes.
I punched in a command as her chains pulled her back against the wall and held her immobile. I entered the test chamber, ready to plunge the syringe once more into the worn flesh of her neck.
An alarm blared, and I stopped in my tracks. I sneered, angry to have been interrupted. Unit 387 was outside, vigilant and quiet as ever, eyes glued to a terminal.
"Well, what is it? What the hell is it this time?" I demanded.
"An intruder, sir."
I froze, I snarled. Again with this. I feared I knew all too well the answer to my next question. "Don't tell me it's her again."
387 nodded. I growled with frustration. "Three times, that putrid little human has come to ruin everything."
When would I be rid of her? She was a relentless, ever-present thorn in my side. Reports of her sabotage flooded in from pirate vessels far and wide, and here she was again, undaunted. Was she really that hard to kill?
"We need to move," I ordered. "We cannot risk losing Transfuse."
"My knight is here... my knight is here," the mutant murmured. "He's gonna murder you, that's what's gonna happen."
"Oh shut up," I hissed, annoyed that I could no longer ignore her mumblings by simply switching off a translator.
"Where will we take her?"
"I will relocate her to the bunker in the lower level," I quickly devised. "It is storage space, no pirates, no research. The Hunter has far less reason to go there than the rest of the ship, and the vaults are fortified."
"Do you need any assistance?"
"No," I answered. "You remain here, keep watch, try to divert her if she comes in our direction."
He nodded complacently, and I tossed away my syringe. Testing would have to be postponed indefinitely.
I armed myself with a rifle and blade. They were in case I needed to subdue Transfuse, not the Hunter. I knew all too well how useless basic weaponry was against her. My current armor was barely superior to a militia unit. Useless, useless. An entire division of Science Team had been devoted to finding countermeasures for the Hunter, all without result. No, I would not be a fool and throw myself into her line of fire. My research was my only priority, and seven years of progress stood chained in a cell. I refused to lose her.
387 punched in the necessary commands and the mutant's hardlight chains unbound. Her arms fell limply to her sides, atrophied and weak. I need not waste time restraining them.
A thunderous rumble rocked down from the upper level as loose dust and debris shook free from the ceiling. She was getting closer.
I grabbed Tranfuse by the back of her neck and dragged her out of her cell. I had to hurry, I needed to get to safety. I rushed out the door and started making my way to the lower levels of the ship.
Transfuse was surprisingly complacent. She did not struggle, and she did not speak. And why should she? Surely even she could not ignore the massive difference in size between us. Even with my genes, she had barely managed to grow much taller than my waist.
But despite her silence I could see a wry, cocky smile etched across her face. She was cooperative on the outside, but I had no doubts about the insidious, defiant thoughts running through her head. I would have to resist the urge to beat her.
We passed through hallway after hallway. The lighting began to shift to one much dimmer as the less-maintained sections of the ship came up. We were getting close, we would be at safety soon.
The rumbles in the ship continued, and I could hear the sound of distant roars from above. A repetitive sound in my transceiver interrupted them, followed by a voice.
"215, she is looking for you."
I stopped dead in my tracks, my paranoia mounting. His voice was shaken and out-of-breath. Something had happened. "What do you mean?"
"She compromised every terminal in your lab. She knows, she wants Transfuse. I managed to flee but, she interrogated one of the technicians she found there before she shot him-"
"Did he give anything away?"
"Yes, he told her where you planned to escape to."
I snarled. The despicable little coward.
Where would we go now? To the escape pods? It seemed like such a drastic measure, but we had little choice. I changed course, I dragged Transfuse now in the opposite direction.
But the mutant was silent no longer. That bratty little grin had opened. She was laughing, giggling maniacally and spewing out taunts.
"You're gonna dieee, you're gonna diieee," she said lyrically. "Don't you get it?"
I could stand it no longer, and I stopped running for a moment. I struck the child across her face and snarled.
"Be quiet you stupid little brat!" I hissed. Her face had been bloodied by the rake of my claws, but that devilish, stubborn smile remained. She was still laughing.
I could barely hold myself back anymore. My anger was to the point where I was tempted to cut her open right then and there, just to make that smile go away.
But a noise distracted me from my fury. I looked up. The rumblings from above had stopped, replaced now by the subtle clank of metal through the vents.
I became quiet, under the assumption that I was being watched. I covered Transfuse's mouth with my hand and held her up against me.
I could feel my claw shaking as the child continue to giggle. Suddenly her mandibles stretched beneath my hand and snapped shut. I restrained myself from crying out as the brat bit down deep into my hand. I managed to keep quiet, but I could not hold back a flinch, one which freed the mutant's mouth just that smallest of bits.
"I'M IN HERE! I'M IN HERE!" she screamed, just before I muffled her voice once again with a bloodied hand. But it was already too late.
The clankings in the air shaft became louder and louder until the ceiling in front of me shattered. Something orange and metallic fell down in front of me, blazing gold and taking on the vaguely human form of the accursed Hunter.
In moments that glinting cannon was pointed straight at my head. Thinking quickly, I unsheathed my blade and raised it to Transfuse's neck. I held her up in front of me like a shield, hoping desperately that she would act as one.
To my surprise, it worked. The Hunter refused to fire, and I grinned wildly with the realization that I had a hostage. No doubt the Hunter found some sense of sympathy for the once-human creature in my arms.
We were at an impasse. My blade was at Tranfuse's neck, the Hunter's cannon pointed at my own. She refused to fire as long as I had my hostage. The little mutant was my key out of here. Slowly I backed away, towards the exit.
I was almost there, I was almost at the door. I glanced backward with my auxiliary eyes and could see it so tantalizingly close. I just needed to get there, I told myself, and I would escape.
A blast of light erupted just to the side of the door and my gaze quickly darted forward. The Hunter's cannon steamed with fresh fire.
"Not another step," she warned, speaking through a translator, her voice low and mechanical. "I'd rather she be dead then let her leave with you. Give her up or you both die."
I snarled, furious to have been given an ultimatum. But I was hopelessly outgunned, and the only thing between me and death was the Hunter's own reluctance to kill the hybrid. As soon as we were separated, she would fire.
I tried desperately to think of a way to break the stalemate in my favor.
I roared in pain as something sharp and metal jammed itself into my foot. Transfuse had plunged her prosthetic downward, and I lapsed for a moment, recoiling in pain and losing my grip.
The mutant took the opportunity to run forward, towards the Hunter. Her arms splayed wide and she gripped the Hunter by the waist, clinging tightly and erupting into sobs. The human teetered on her armored feet, put off-balance for a single moment as Transfuse latched on to her.
I quickly took the opportunity to dart out the door behind me. The barrage of cannon fire was very nearly drowned out by a horrible wailing. The Hunter tried futilely to hit me, but her shots spread far askew. Transfuse was practically screaming, hugging her tightly and shaking her, throwing off her aim. I nearly laughed. The idiot girl had just ended up saving me.
I was out the door. I ran, barely half a sector passed and I heard no footsteps behind me. I continued to run blindly, hoping to find some troops, perhaps another Unit to help me go back and retrieve my precious experiment. But there was nothing, no one, and I continued on in desperation.
It quickly became apparent that I was too late. Something vibrant and orange caught my attention from outside a porthole. A gunship clad in the same colors as the Hunter drifted by before disappearing in a warp.
I was free, I had escaped. But I quickly realized what I had just lost in the desperate attempt to save my own life;
Transfuse was gone.
