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"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
~Nelson Mandela
Chapter Fifty-nine: What Shall We Die For?
Cameron swallowed, neck twisting as he looked around the arrayed Advent legions. There were dozens...hundreds of soldiers...
"Lieutenant?" Julie shot Aileen a worried glance. "Are we going to...are they..."
Aileen didn't respond.
"Stay with me." Cameron drew his pistol, gently touching Firebrand's shoulder. "Just stay close to me."
"I will." That was uncharacteristically subdued, even if the way she drew her own sidearm was normal.
"We won't wait forever, kids." The Hunter sighed, then glared at Meysam where he stood with Kang and Nui and Charlotte. Mariah shot him an obscene hand gesture.
"This is the Elders' grace we offer. Left to our own devices, we would not be nearly so generous: one of the few areas where my brother and I are in agreement." The Warlock held up three fingers. "Three." He curled one. "Two."
Aileen raised the Bolt Caster. Mox and Dragunova readied their guns, and Sylvie and Julie squeezed each others' hands. Liang swallowed loudly, and Cameron squeezed her shoulder too.
"One." The Warlock sighed a moment later. "Very well. In that case-"
Blam! Something purple shot up behind him, tinting the light from the EMP spike, and the Chosen cut off with a strangled gasp.
"Today, you bear witness-"
"Hell yeah!" Mariah's face lit up.
"-to the true power of the Templar Order-"
"Geist, you son of a bitch!" Dragunova's smile would have lit up a black hole.
"-firsthand!" And Geist stabbed the Warlock again with both arm-blades, and then a dozen screaming Templars appeared from glowing purple holes in thin air, led by a wild redhead who hacked her way through a dozen stun lancers in half as many seconds. Lightning seared from their hands, blowing entire formations left and right and scattering their elements. Automatic pistols roared, and bullets drove into modified alien flesh in counts of tens.
"Vox Tala for Ten!" Mox roared, before unloading with his bullpup. Adventers went down on all sides, and Cameron scrambled to pick out his own targets. Junior's rocket flew and Julie and Sylvie let loose their psi-powers, while Aileen put her Caster shot right into the Hunter's midsection. He flew back into the trees with a strangled cry, a lemon drop popping out of his mouth, and his brother cried out as Liang and David both hit him with frags when Geist vaulted into the midst of the MECs, blades carving metal limbs apart without hesitation.
"Hit them!" Mariah led the charge, shard gun roaring, and Fatima covered her from the flank. The Egyptian's rocket lanced out and blew a MEC into ashes - and then that redhead was among XCOM's ranks, alternating between flailing magic-arm-blade slashes and spinning kicks that floored men twice her size.
"Stay with me!" she cried, before bringing her hands together. A pillar of light shot up in front of her, absorbing twenty Adventers' worth of mag-rounds that would have eviscerated Cameron and Firebrand. He could only stare in awe as the shots reflected, soaring back out and cutting down their own senders while leaving the Templar's shield unmarked.
"...come on!" Cameron took his spot at Liang's right hand, and together they charged, weapons blazing, into the chaotic melee ahead.
"It's time to come home, Edward." Angelis loomed over him, sarong blowing in the breeze as the light continued to build from the east. She offered a mimosa one-handed, smiling down in the dark. "It's time to let this end."
"You..." Gallant shook his head dazedly. "You did something. Psionics."
"It's the one thing I do, Commander."
"And what?" Gallant spat right on her bare foot. "You think I'll just come walking back with you, right off my ship?"
"Frankly, Edward, I don't think you have another choice." Her purple eyes hardened just a little. "I would like us to be friends, but in the end, if it saves my people I have no compunctions about your choosing the way of pain." The violet energy in her gaze built just a little. "I compel you, with all my power."
Gallant cried out as it felt like a wet blanket wrapped around his head. He couldn't breathe...psionic energy clouded his vision, tugged on his synapses like puppet-strings...
...and kept tugging...
...and Gallant slowly realized he could still think.
"...wait." Angelis blinked very slowly. "I don't..."
Gallant let out a long, slow breath. The sand around his hands shifted, lifting up into the air and scattering as if on a heavy wind. Below the grains was metal decking, and as the ocean blew away on the blue-tinted breeze, it revealed the bridge.
"...you made a goddamn mistake hooking me into your neural network, didn't you?" The last thing of the beach Gallant saw before he tackled Angelis was the sun bursting over the far horizon.
Gallant and Angelis slammed into the holodisplay, and sparks flew as he seized her by the hair and shoved her head into one of the projectors. She let out a wail, and then her knee came up to crack into his mangled leg. Gallant smashed his head into hers when she popped out of his grip, and the Elder stumbled backward.
"Enough!" She drew a surge of violet energy, slinging it right at him. It hit like a tide at a water park: cold, inundating, vicious...
...and it didn't sink in.
"What are you?" Angelis cried, as Gallant threw himself on her again, cane-sword flying back into his hand. He bashed it into her forehead hilt-first, giving him the time he needed to flip it and slice open her other rib. Angelis vanished in a blast of psi-energy, reappearing across the bridge-
"Stop it!" She slung another blast of purple, this one smelling of the aftereffects of napalm. Another came, then another, and her eyes widened with each attack - and with each time they hit Gallant dead-on and scattered around him, barely slowing him down as he seized the bottom half of his cane and lunged across the bridge.
"Get off my ship!" Gallant slashed her outstretched arm the minute he was close enough, and her amp soared into a far corner. Angelis brought her gun up, desperate terror shining in the depths of her gaze, and Gallant abandoned his blade to seize the weapon. He yanked, and though she was stronger, Gallant twisted the gun and broke her grip in an instant. He bashed her in the stomach with the butt, then threw the carbine aside as Angelis kicked him.
"This isn't possible!" She grabbed him by the throat. "I am the pinnacle of the Ethereal Ones!" She hoisted Gallant up higher into the air, and he clutched at her grip on his neck. "If I can't break your mind, I will make you submit with my hands!"
"Come on!" Meysam Saleh put a shot into a muton's head, and the beast collapsed in a heap at Mariah's feet. Young Miss Bradford was a veritable war machine, firing a hail of shard gun blasts on all sides and axing down anyone who got too close for those. Nui, Fatima, and Kang moved in the pair's wake, laying down suppressive fire on anyone who came too close.
"Spike!" Mariah threw her axe next, and it dug into a purifier's tank. The soldier had time to gasp before he exploded, pitching shrapnel and refuse into all of his companions. They scattered, and for a moment...
"Do it!" Mariah dove backward as a path to the spike cleared. Janet Ross flipped over her, cutting down two stun lancers coming on in her wake. Geist, Anne Lawrence, and the other Templars cut their way through dozens of Adventers without hesitation, slicing weapons and bodies equally. Their lightning bolts and beams of cover from Heaven dominated the field.
"Going out!" Dragunova threw, and two claymores at once arced across the field. They latched onto the spike, and Meysam worked the bolt. He brought his rifle up, sighting in with a careful breath.
"Take the shot!" Julie raced past him, firing from the hip as Advent's soldiers shrieked and counterattacked, lunging right for Meysam. Sylvie and Charlotte followed her, and Junior with his helix-cannon spitting hate and death. He punched a berserker that tried to get too close, and the beast flew back right into the EMP spike.
Meysam let out his breath...and hit the trigger.
The claymores went up on contact, and their combined firepower erupted with a blast that made everyone scramble for cover. The explosive force drove hard into the spike's internal workings, shredding processors and flinging armor plate aside. Deep inside, a flying piece of shrapnel punched into a power relay cable, which set off a chain reaction down the spike all the way to its power core.
The spike exploded with the force of its final pulse, blowing its top half up into the sky on a trail of fire while the remnants went out, cutting down dozens of Adventers.
"Avenger, this is Menace!" Meysam fired again, cutting down a soldier dangerously close to shooting Mariah. She smiled at him, but then she was back to kicking ass, and he hunted for his next target. "The spike is down!"
"The spike is down!"
"It's too late. It's all too late." Angelis slammed Gallant into the far wall, and rage built up in her eyes. He struggled to breathe, feeling his body's weakness as she held him like a ragdoll. "I will take you back with me, Commander, before this ship turns into a funeral pyre for your entire Resistance movement-"
She screamed as bullets hammered her back. Several burst out her chest, and Gallant yelped when one went through her and dug into his leg. At least it was his bad leg, not that it helped him much when Angelis dropped him.
"That was for Moira!" Bradford hit Angelis in the back of the head with his now-empty rifle, then discarded it and whipped the knife off from his shoulder. Angelis whirled, giving him a solid punch to the face despite her wavering legs. She caught Bradford's first attempted stab-
"Gotcha!" Gallant seized his blade and drove it through the back of her knee. Angelis let out a piercing shriek.
It cut off when Bradford rammed his knife into the side of her neck. Angelis' eyes widened.
"You..." Angelis froze as red dripped from the corners of her mouth. She even reached up to dab at it, as if surprised. "You haven't seen the last of me, Commander."
She exploded, and the backblast of psi-energy flung Gallant and Bradford two different ways. Gallant hit the wall, while his XO tumbled into the tech pit right over the holodisplay. The world spun and shook, and Gallant smelled the salty sea air of Southern California.
It made him terribly homesick.
"Avenger? Come in! This is Menace, the spike is down-"
"Menace." Gallant found his voice. "We copy. Get back to the ship, now. We are leaving." He switched channels. "Doctor Tygan, the EMP is disabled. Reinitialize the power core."
Silence.
"Doctor?" Gallant thumped his head back into the wall, clutching the bullet wound in his thigh while Zhang and Volk collected the pieces of his cane and Betos directed the counterassault into the passageways. "Doctor Tygan! Someone better be dying, Doctor, because if you don't get that power on now, we're all up Shit Creek!"
Pain. Haze. Red.
Tygan's world swam in and out of those conditions. The agony in his chest pulsed and beat, like the blood rushing out of him had its own tempo. It stained his chest and the floor, and it even soaked into his pants after this long. It was warm, and it was sticky.
"Doctor?"
Tygan lifted his head, groaning with the effort. There was his com, lying on the floor a meter distant. How he'd heard the call...
"Com...Command..." Words were hard. They slipped through his mental fingers as soon as he thought he had a hold of them. The world hazed out again.
"The spike is down. Tygan, we need the power core reengaged now..."
Tygan groaned again, this time as he reached out. He caught onto the SHADOW Chamber floor, hauling himself arm over arm. He left a red trail behind him, and every time his wound scraped over the floor...
It wasn't as painful as cutting the chip out of his skull. Tygan grunted, but he persevered, despite the living fire tearing him apart.
"Power...power is..." He forgot that he didn't have his com in. Nothing mattered: not that, not the pain, not Kipler's betrayal or the incursion into the ship or...any of it. Tygan reached up, grabbing for his computer console. There was the button he needed, right there...
He couldn't reach it. Tygan's strength failed, and he collapsed on his face. The world hazed...it spun and wavered out of focus...
...he hurt so much...
"Kipler..." He still couldn't believe it. After all this time...the man he'd trusted so much...
It didn't make sense. Tygan couldn't grasp what would turn the man he'd respected, who'd taught him, into an Advent puppet. He couldn't grasp anything. He hurt...
"Doctor!" Gallant's voice was faint in the distance, ringing from the discarded com piece. "Doctor, we're in the shit! Get those engines online or we're done here!"
Engines. Tygan's eyes went up to his console again. He couldn't reach.
If he didn't reach, XCOM was done. If he didn't reach, Kipler won.
Tygan screamed with exertion as he shoved himself up, grabbing the edge of his table. His body shook all over, and blood ran over his keyboard and his computer chair. He didn't care: he didn't care about any of it, not one bit.
All he cared about was the button on his screen, and the fact that he managed to get his thumb on it.
The power core engaged with a terrific thrum, and the floor shook as it did. The SHADOW Chamber's computers powered back on in one great wave, and Tygan managed a gasping cry of victory.
Before he collapsed on his back, choking on his own blood.
"Doctor Tygan!" The infirmary nurse rushed in, eyes wide and horrified. "Doctor, hang on-"
That was the one thing he couldn't do. Darkness swept over him like a tide.
The power core engaged with a terrific thrum, and the floor shook under Lily's feet. Engineering terminals lit up almost as one, running through their boot checks, and sparks flew from exposed parts and wires that had been jostled loose in the crash.
"Shen, Tygan's reengaged power." Gallant paused for a breath."Activate the main engines and get us out of here."
"...Jiaying..."
She didn't respond. Lily's cousin abandoned her gun, reaching into the paneling at her side. She pulled out a red wire, and she fished with purpose left-handed.
Lily couldn't get to her in time. She couldn't...the lights revealed Vermuelen's gun, lying under a computer table, but even that was too far...
...the computer hummed and whirred.
"Jiaying, wait!" Lily scooted over that way, and she plucked up the object she'd left lying on the table so long ago. She plugged it into the back of the machine as surreptitiously as she could, and its humming accelerated the instant she did. "Don't do this!"
"You're too late, Lily." Jiaying ripped an orange wire from the wall with a glint of victory in her eye. She ripped the sheathing off the red one, then the other. "Time's up."
"Shen?" Gallant didn't sound happy. "Shen, report."
"If you do that, we'll all be destroyed." Lily put her hands up as nonthreateningly as possible. "Jiaying, please, don't-"
"The decision has been made." Jiaying swallowed, hesitating despite her rhetoric. Lily blinked.
"...you don't have to die today." She took a careful step forward. "Jiaying, you can see your son again...your parents-"
"Just stop." Jiaying sighed. "I wish you hadn't made this necessary. I tried to warn you all off the course you chose. This was the only outcome."
"Jiaying..." Lily felt a single tear run down her cheek. "Please."
"I'm sorry, Lily." Jiaying turned, and her nostrils flared. "This way, my parents and my son get to live, even if it's without me. It's the only way."
She brought the wires together.
The lights went out across Engineering in one fell swoop. The power core whined as it went down on the reset cycle, and every terminal flickered and crackled. Reserve power diverted, seemingly of its own accord, and a light behind Jiaying clicked on, backlighting her perfectly as she stared at the wires in confusion.
"What the-"
"Shen, what the hell is happening down there-"
"Now, Lily!" Julian cried from the speakers, his face appearing on his now-wirelessly-enabled terminal.
She didn't need the urging. She'd already knelt down, already swept Vermuelen's gun up from the floor, already brought it up two-handed even as the lights came back on-
Bang!
Jiaying let out a harsh cry as the first shot went into her shoulder. She tried to bring the wires together-
Bang!
The second shot took her in the chest. She staggered, legs nearly giving out, but she still had the wires. Shock blossomed over her face and horror filled her eyes as they bore on Lily's-
Bang!
Jiaying Shen crashed back into the wall, wires flying from her hands as the third shot hit her in the base of the throat. She choked, red running from her wounds...before slumping down at the base of the wall, unmoving.
Silence filled Engineering.
"Oh...my God..." The pistol fell from Lily's nerveless fingers, clattering down on the deck at her feet. She took a half-step back, only for her suddenly-weak legs to give out under her.
Her cousin lay there, perforated by magnetic rounds...and Lily had been the one to fire them.
"My God..." She clutched at her face, feeling the blood that didn't physically coat her hands. "Out...damned spot..."
"Shen, these things are still coming." Gallant's voice took on a new, worried tone. "Shen, you need to engage the engines or none of us are leaving here today!"
"Jiaying...Jiaying..."
"Shen, status report. Shen? Kelly, are you there? What the hell is going on down there?"
Lily muted her com. All she could see was Jiaying...her cousin, her family...
"Lily." Julian's face appeared on the primary monitor. "I rebooted the power core, but the engines are activated by a manual lever. I can't move something I can't touch."
"I...I killed her." Lily's brain couldn't move past it. It never would, never, she knew that in her heart. "I shot her...she...she wasn't doing it by choice...she's dead, Julian..."
"If you don't pull that lever, Lily, she dies for nothing anyway."
Lily's gaze flicked up to his face, red and glowing on the primary monitor. Somehow, though it was the same graphic as always, she thought there was...empathy in its contours.
Lily pushed herself up and seized the engine control lever in both hands.
If she collapsed again when she'd finished, and if she cried over her cousin's body...she'd still done her part. And now there was someone else to take the load from there.
"Commander, Central."
"What the-" Bradford leveled his rifle at the holodisplay as Julian's icon appeared in it. Gallant caught his arm, though his own eyes bulged too.
"Jesus Christ, how did you-"
"There's no time. The engines are online and the ship should be clear for takeoff within sixty seconds. You need to recall Menace with all haste."
"...oh, so you're on our side now?" Bradford gaped.
"Once again, you earn top marks. Why did Commander Gallant keep you on as XO again?"
"It's been one hell of a morning." Gallant keyed his com, waving Bradford down. "Sure, Julian's on our team now. Whatever." He cleared his throat. "Menace, the ship is clear for takeoff. Get your asses back here on the double."
"Roger that!" Aileen waited a moment, then chimed back in. "Enemy's in disarray. The Templar elements are leading the path back to the ship. Firebrand's in tow, but she and Julie are wounded."
"Commander."
"Mariah?" Gallant frowned. "Something to report?"
"Sir...it's not going to matter."
"Say again, Bradford." Gallant frowned.
"The enemy's deploying chryssalids and codices. Fast movers, supplemented by MECs. Sir, if we all fall back at once...they'll just advance with us. With Julie and Firebrand wounded, we can't all just run. They'll pick us off."
Gallant eyed the holodisplay. "Corporal, there is a battleship inbound from the Florida Keys. It'll be here in eleven minutes, and it'll pound half of Virginia into slag from orbit. Staying is not an option."
"I'm not saying we all stay, sir."
Gallant slowly leaned one hand on the rail. "Mariah...anyone who doesn't fall back to Avenger within nine minutes is as good as dead. Whoever stays behind..." He swallowed. "We won't be able to come back for them."
Silence deafened the bridge. Volk's face paled, and Betos let out a slow breath.
"I know, sir." Mariah's voice was small, but she sounded just like... "I'll do it."
"Mariah..." Gallant took one look at the stricken, shocked expression on Bradford's face, and his chest tightened. "Mariah, this is-"
"Well, sir, it's like my father would say: if you have a shot, you take it." That made Bradford jerk as if he'd been hit over the head.
Gallant stood alone, and the only man in his mind was his father, all those years ago.
Sometimes, Edward, being in command just means you get to choose who dies.
"...Mariah, I cannot order you to do this."
"You can't order me not to, either."
"Or me." That was David White, and he sounded just as set. "What? One little kid with a shard gun? They'd roll right over you if you were alone."
"I'm going." And without another word, Zhang left the bridge.
"I don't think Captain Kelly would-"
"This is my choice, Commander. We talked." David let out a wry chuckle. "Forgive me for being happy you'll be the one who has to deal with her."
Gallant swallowed.
"Oh...ow." Jane Kelly rolled onto her side, groaning as consciousness belatedly, argumentatively, returned. She clutched the boiling agony in her chest. "...someone shot me..."
She sat up, crying out as her body declared it a bad idea. She clutched her head one-handed, feeling around for her shard gun with the other. Through the haze of her vision, she saw...
"Shen?" She paused a moment later. "And Shen?"
"She was the traitor." Lily's eyes were glassy, devoid of hope and ringing with misery. Her tone was so blank... "I killed her."
"...Shen, I..." Jane got her feet under her. "I'm sorry-"
"This is Gallant on all channels. If Mariah and David are determined to do this, you better not waste the chance."
"Chance? Do what?" Jane hit her com. "Bridge, this is Kelly. What the hell is happening?"
"Captain..." Gallant clearly had no idea where to begin. "Mariah and David have...made the judgment that the enemy force-"
"Fucking hell!" Jane seized her arc blade and threw it over her shoulder. She opened another channel. "David, you son of a bitch-"
"We talked about this, Jane." He let out a little chuckle. "You said it yourself. Feel what you want and say what you want, but this is my choice. You can't take it away from me. This is what I signed up for. It's the job."
"No!" Jane clenched her fist. "You selfish prick! You don't get to...you don't get to...just like that-"
"Jane-"
"Tech." Gallant's voice was like a gunshot. "Cut Kelly's com."
"Oh, no! No, you fucking crippled bastard-" Jane let out a wordless shriek as her com let out the dull tone of disconnection. "That's it!"
"Where are you going?" Lily demanded, still distant, as Jane stormed for the stairs. She took them four at a time, racing off for the hangar bay.
She checked that there was still ammunition in her magazine, jaw set.
"You didn't have to do that, sir." David sighed. "She won't understand - but she won't sway me, either."
"Maybe not." Commander Gallant sighed, then shrugged, as if deciding the issue wasn't worth an extended conversation. His jaw worked as he visibly thought things over. "Tech."
"Sir?" One of the men down in the pit, bleeding from a cut above the eye, glanced up.
"Set up a private line." Gallant turned back to John Bradford, and he gave him a single nod.
Bradford managed one of his own.
The tech gave him a thumbs up.
"Mariah?" Bradford stepped away from the globe, peripherally noticing Betos and Volk turn their backs as ostentatiously as possible. "Are you there?"
"Central, sir?"
"Mariah..." Bradford cleared his throat. "...situation report."
"Sir, Zhang's just made his way to us. Fatima tried to stay, but he gave her a direct order." Mariah hesitated. "The enemy's probing our position right now. We found a little stand of rocks where we can hold off a good number of them for a good long while. They must be massing for a real push somewhere further back."
"Understood. I..." A lump filled the back of Bradford's throat, and he had to clutch the rail hard with his free hand. "I appreciate what you're doing, Mariah."
"Sir. And..." She hesitated. "Sir. Central."
"Wait, Mariah-"
"I just want to say I'm sorry." It all came out very quickly. "I'm sorry...I'm just sorry. Everything that...I'm-"
"No. No, Mariah!" Bradford's arm gave out, and his legs couldn't hold him. His eyes filled and hazed, until the world was an underwater vista. He didn't even feel the impact as he landed on his knees. "Mariah...I'm the one who's sorry. I'm so sorry...for everything."
Mariah Bradford felt tears trickle down her cheek. She quivered, standing under the first trickle of oncoming rain, feeling the gentle kiss of dewdrops and the caress of loving breezes.
And she smiled.
"It's okay, sir." She squeezed her eyes shut. "It's really okay."
"It's an honor to have known you. And I should have...I should have told you sooner. I should have done a lot of things. And I hope you can..."
Mariah let out a long breath. "I love you...Dad."
"Mariah..." He was crying. "Mariah, I love you too."
Avenger's engines roared in the distance. Mariah gave the ship one glance...then the treeline full of Advent units, preparing their push.
"Now or never for them." She glanced to David, checking his grenade launcher. "You didn't have to do this with me."
"Shut up, kid." David jerked his head toward the enemy. "Save it for them, yeah? I figure I can get a couple more'n you before all's said and done."
"Thank you." Mariah glanced past him. "And you, grandpa."
"I already lost everything." Zhang had a rifle, and he had a knife, and he had a bandolier of grenades too. He cracked his neck. "I was already old. Figure I only have this one fight left in me anyway. Might as well make it one to remember."
"Menace, this is Gallant. We are initiating final takeoff sequence." The Commander hesitated. "Good luck out there."
"Save the luck for yourselves." David paused. "And make this mean something, sir. Make it matter."
"We will." Gallant's voice never broke, but Mariah fancied she could hear his own distress.
"They're moving." Zhang nodded, and Mariah's gaze turned to the forest, and the stirring of hundreds of forms. "They'll be coming."
"All right, then. Let's be heroes." Mariah hefted her shard gun. She hesitated...then switched back to her private channel. "Te amo, papá. Adios."
"Move!" Jane threw a shell-shocked Meysam out of her way, then bulled in between Aileen and Charlotte without a word. She tugged on the brim of her cap, shaking as she fought through the hangar for the still-open bay doors. Pneumatics hissed, and she heard the countdown announcing the close-up.
"Where are they?" She grabbed Julie by the shoulder the instant she found her. "Where the hell did they go, Richardson? Where are they set up?"
"Jane..."
"Tell me!" Her voice went so high Julie flinched. But the redhead didn't volunteer anything, and Jane swore. "Fine! Fuck you too, then!" She whirled on the gangway, and Jane checked her shard gun. "I'll find them myself."
"Jane, that's suicide!" Aileen caught her arm. Jane shook loose.
"I don't care! David's not dying without me." She shuddered at the thought, but it didn't stop her from moving. "We'll end this together. Arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder as we go down fighting. I won't be separated from him-"
Pain rolled over her in an enormous wave, searing out to her fingers and toes from the base of her neck. Jane let out a gasping, choking cry as her brain boiled in her skull, and purple overrode her vision.
"I'm sorry, Jane." Julie's eyes and voice alike bubbled over with misery and grief. "I'm losing enough friends today."
"Don't you dare-"
She snapped her fingers, and Jane fell back into the swamp of unconsciousness.
"Settle down, right here." Cameron gently set Lilah on the first big crate he could find. "We'll get you down to the infirmary later, all right, Firebrand?"
"Bed rest sounds good." She held up one finger, though her grin had more exhaustion and less spunk than Cameron was used to. "Don't kamikaze into a Chosen's face, Moose. Not fun after the thirty seconds of adrenaline-infused kickass."
"I'll remember that."
"Come on!" Janet Ross waved the rest of her people aboard, personally waiting at the base of the gangplank until she was the last one out. She hurried up into the hangar, alien blood staining her thick gauntlets. "That's everyone."
"Except Mariah and David." Fatima Tariq's eyes darkened. "And Zhang."
"Yeah. Except them." Liang stared out at the forest and the oncoming rain. Her eyes darkened like the skies. "Those poor brave bastards."
"I need to speak to Commander Gallant." Geist looked around the hangar. "Where is he?"
"Bridge." Charlotte sighed a moment later. "I will take you, monsieur. Watching here will not make me feel any better about what is going to happen."
"Go on." Aileen held Jane in a bridal carry, and she gently pulled her back from the open bay doors. "It's okay, Charley. We won't judge."
"Moose!"
"Firebrand?" He turned.
She caught the side of his cheek. Her ash-and-soot-stained lips went up to his, and in an electrifying four seconds, he discovered at least part of the reason she had the codename she did.
"...what was that for?" Cameron stared when she let him go. She shrugged.
"You saved my life."
"You saved mine-"
"One of us owes the other a kiss and I don't care who: I just took it."
"...Moose?"
"Liang!" Cameron spun on his heel, snapping straight. She stared through vacant eyes, and Cameron's mind completely blanked. "Uh...um...well..."
Avenger bucked under his feet. The engines roared, and slowly she eased up into the air. The bay doors groaned and rumbled, rising to seal the aft end.
"They are frightened," Sylvie whispered, eyes dark. Julie nodded wordlessly, and in that moment, Cameron was very glad he'd never Volunteered.
"I like to think I'd have had the guts to do it, if they hadn't." Liang drifted closer, eyes vacant. "I wish I'd thought to say something first."
"Yeah. Me too." Cameron swallowed. "Me too."
Firebrand didn't say anything. But she reached out for Cameron's hand, and when he saw the shock and misery in her green eyes, he took it.
"God, this is awful." Liang, either not noticing or not caring, buried her head in Cameron's chest. Arthritically, he wrapped his free arm around her shoulders.
They stood watching every minute until the bay doors shut.
Rain thundered down over the forest. It pounded Shaojie Zhang's still form, riddled with mag-rounds. He lay with a dozen bodies around him in various states of dismemberment and damage, and his knife was coated in yellow blood. David White sat against a rock not far away, coughing out his last breaths and a good bit of blood too. He had the laceration marks from stun lancer batons, the bullet wounds from mag-fire, and the bruises from being wrapped up by a viper.
They'd never given in, not until the last instant, and neither had Mariah.
"Ah!" She crashed on her hands and knees in the mud, gasping as the impact sent a jolt up her mangled right arm. Blood ran over her face, washed off by the pounding rain, and her leg had to be broken at the least. Her ribs burned and seared, and her various bullet wounds demanded attention in their own way. She coughed, and wasn't surprised that it came out red like David's.
Booted feet moved all around her, as the soldiers who'd taken her gun and her axe retreated. Mariah fought her way onto her knees, glaring all around as her slicked hair got into her eyes.
A purple figure loomed over her, the rain slithering down his red armor.
"You fought with valor, child, even if it was misplaced." The Warlock examined her critically. "You must know where the ship whose escape you ensured is bound."
Mariah laughed. "Like I'd tell you."
"You are loyal. Believe it or not, I appreciate loyalty." The Warlock glanced over his shoulder, and Mariah's breath caught when she saw the insectoid forms looming behind him, clattering and chittering amongst themselves. They darted and ducked forward, stayed from charging only by the Warlock's upraised hand. Mariah watched them set to on David and Zhang's remains, and she shivered as gore flew.
"Your life is forfeit." The Warlock shifted his weight, and Mariah's eyes fixed on the rifle he'd deliberately brought into her field of vision. "But some deaths are less...disagreeable than others."
Mariah swallowed. She shook, too, frozen to the core by the rain and her terror alike. The Warlock knelt in the mud with her, and his hateful eyes burned with sick condescension.
"Where is the Avenger going, girl?" He neither looked to his pets or his gun: the offer was clear enough.
Mariah shook. She trembled, and her insides churned.
But she spat in his eye anyway.
The Warlock stood slowly. He wiped at his face with one long talon, and cold, inhuman disdain filled his gaze.
"So be it." He turned, striding off into the gloom. Just before he disappeared, he whistled, leveling one finger at Mariah.
She didn't think anyone would judge her for screaming when the chryssalid pack charged, David and Zhang's blood still dripping from their mandibles. They lunged for her, and fangs sunk into her arm. Mariah beat at them one-handed, crying out as the venom of at least a dozen beasts dripped all over her-
Boom!
The projectile hit her like a hammerblow to the chest. Borne on a trail of black smoke, the red mag-shot rammed in right through her predator armor, blowing through her lung and out her back, flinging her almost twenty feet. She crashed in the mud and rolled, choking on her own blood. Blackness seared in quickly at the edge of her vision.
Before it claimed her, she saw the Warlock whirl...heard him shout something furious down the track of the shot...
Then there was no more pain.
Author's Note 59: "Hell, I'd Kill Mariah Before I Killed Mox"
Yeah. I knew. You may not believe me, but I promise you this: I am sorry about this one.
Which doesn't change that I'd do it again.
Like the example with Irina, this was the first scene I conceived of for Mariah. Everything up until now was done with the express intent of making it mean something to you like it does to me. What's just happened will set the tone for the beginning of Season Three in more than one way - but we still have one more chapter in Season Two. I'll see you for that.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.