WHEN THE POWER WENT OUT and the corridors went dark, the inside of the Sisters' masks lit up, revealing their surroundings in fine detail. Inside the mask a projection outlined their surroundings with perfect clarity and knew that the technology in their masks would belie what many believed about her people and their supposed backwardness.
They rose noiselessly and entered the corridor beyond. Navigation was easy and they made good time as they advanced toward the Prey's bolthole.
Aikijji saw him first.
She relayed through subtle hand signs his position and speed, angled through a side corridor to intercept him. She was gratified that he did not cower in ambush nor run in fear. He was coming directly on and she was proud of him in that moment.
That did not mean that she would show him mercy.
Cautious, Crichton stuck his head tentatively around a corner and she launched a volley of her quills.
She waited to hear if there was any indication that she had hit him, paused for just a microt – and narrowly missed the small grenade that came bouncing up the corridor!
A lightning quick dash back saved her as the grenade detonated, whiting out her mask - and saved her from the volley of pulse fire that immediately followed it.
Aikijji smiled with an admonishing note to herself to not underestimate him again. She activated a quick reboot of her mask and breathed, adjusted for the frequency of the grenade and peered around her cover.
There.
A leg edged around the corner and Aikijji put a strategic quill in it, just under his knee. That elicited a satisfying grunt. He pulled back quickly. Aikijji silently moved back up the corridor.
Around the corner, Crichton had yanked the quill and realized with a curse that they could see him out here in the dark. A sharp spike of pain speared up his knee as he moved and he did his best to ignore it. He went to his belly on the floor, crawled across the corridor, doing his best to make as little noise as possible. He could just see a vague shape up there, his eyes having adjusted to the dark. Along the base of the walls, dim glow strips gave some illumination - just enough to see anything move past them.
"Crichton…" came lightly down the corridor as he slunk through an open door, slowed to pause to listen. The hunter's voice was surprisingly feminine, lyrical, almost …gentle.
"I am Aikijji, Second Sister. I grant you the gift of my name for your worth. Yet, there is no escape from us." She said with an absolute confident certainty. "You struggle against the inevitable."
What the frell else is new?
"We are not here to kill you."
Crichton rolled his eyes.
Like that would make a difference. Captured, trussed and delivered. Mind rape and death. Yeah, let's 'surrender'. You want me, all you get is a corpse. Either way, I lose.
"Accept it," a calm female voice said from directly behind him and Crichton yelled and dove almost at the same time. A hail of quills followed him. Nihijji stepped adroitly aside as a return pulse blast went over her head.
Crichton rolled and rose in one smooth motion to pelt down the corridor. Aikijji indicated that Nihijji was to go off a branching corridor and thus flank him and she calmly followed him.
Aikijji slowed. Crichton was nowhere to be seen. That should not have been. Aikijji halted, quills flared, her caution great.
"It is not personal," she said to his unseen presence. "It is only the Art. The Way. The Trade."
Aikijji passed a junction and something glimmered on the edge of her senses.
She stopped.
The Se'em'aarilooked up at the exact moment Crichton dropped on her from above, beside her, looping his right arm around her neck and violently jerking her over his shoulder. A sharp wrench broke her neck and she died without a sound.
Not personal, he thought, inexplicably wishing it hadn't been necessary, not at all.
Nihijji suddenly appeared from the branch and he was enveloped instantly in a wall of quills, barely shielding his face in time. He backpedaled away, feeling the sharp barbs bouncing off his armor, but finding their marks in the open spaces on his legs and torso – a staccato of pain following their impacts. He stumbled, legs flailing and crashed hard to the floor.
He scrabbled backward as best he could, slowed by the barbs in him, knew it was that damn soporific Koiban had discovered earlier.
Nihijji hadn't followed.
Several Enforcers appeared from nowhere - came from a side door flush in the wall - most likely a hidden guard access - and assaulted the Hunter. Nihijji flashed back with amazing speed and managed to kill the first two who had emerged, though they quickly overwhelmed her. Her mask came free and bounced down the corridor toward him.
She went down and an Enforcer stepped on her, his shock rod slamming down into her chest and lightning erupting from it. Despite herself, she screamed. A flare of her quills shot out and killed it, only to be replaced as she tried to scrabble her way away. This time, the new Enforcer stomped on her back with vindictive force and she cried out, went limp.
Again, the shock rod came down on the back of her neck and Crichton could see the intent now was to make her suffer, as if she was not already doing so.
Crichton could see a surprisingly elfin face, dominated by large eyes, those eyes finding him in the gloom - a look he never forgot.
"I am Nihijji…! Eldest Sis -" she cried.
Crichton killed her with a single shot.
The two Enforcers, deprived of their sport, turned and advanced on him.
They did not get far.
Iskijji stepped calmly into the corridor behind him and killed them in a blur of quills, thatshushed above his head. Their grey blood misted the walls.
Iskijji passed by the panting Crichton calmly. She saw her Sisters crumpled, the dead Enforcers and paused for only a microt before passing Nihijji and stopping at her Second Sister. She knelt to carefully remove her mask, setting it reverently down. She rolled Aikijji gently over, reached into her neck quills to find her Ai'shi - the opalescent silver quill, the thickest and oldest, the Se'em'aari's First Quill. She did the same to her Elder Sister then came to pick up her mask from where it had fallen.
Iskijji placed them both in a small pouch at her waist, watched the male on the floor attempting to remove Nihijji's barrage, his limbs slowing as he did it, the toxin on their tips working well.
"I have followed the Art," She said quietly, removing her own mask. Her face was similar to Nihijji's, her eyes large and gleaming in the gloom. "I have tread the Way. I have moved on the Hunt. I have engaged in the Trade." Her voice was full of pride. "It is never personal."
Crichton tried crawling away. Iskijji shook her head and hit him with two very precise strikes – and he stopped gasping as his legs became suddenly useless – two quills stuck firmly in two nerve bundles in either leg.
The pain was … something new.
Another quill found its place in his wrist and the pistol he'd been trying to raise fell from nerveless fingers.
Iskijji stood motionless and watched him.
"I am Iskijji," she said finally, her voice even and soft. Nihijji's mask gleamed in her hand. "I should destroy you."
"Now… that sounds personal…," Crichton ground out, "Kill me …or turn me over, the end …result's the same." He snarled at her. "At least …give me a …fighting chance."
Iskijji cocked her head at him and it reminded him of an inquisitive cat.
She leaned in then and to his astonishment pulled the quills from thighs and wrist.
Crichton watched her warily as she stood and stepped away from him. Her quills were flaring and settling, as if they were matching her breaths, shuddering around her body like windswept grass on a field.
"When you face death," she said evenly, "choose death. Then you shall defeat death and rise anew. The toxin is quick though it does not last long." Iskijji was staring at Nihijji's corpse. "That lesson I learned from her, about death. Now you also know." A large eye slid back his way. "Why are you here?"
"What do you care?" He could feel the strength come back into his limbs, slowly, but returning. Her quills flared, rigid.
"Answer me." She said it low, definite intent in her voice.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." He grimaced as a shot of pain rolled up his back. "I came to rescue somebody." He scoffed lightly. He still didn't quite believe it himself, truth to be told. "A couple of somebodies."
"The females in the security bunker." She'd turned back to contemplate Nihijji.
"Yeah. Them."
Iskijji went silent.
"You will be able to move again shortly," she said eventually, "will you fight me?"
Crichton could feel his limbs beginning to respond.
"Do I get a head start?" Her quills flared and then settled. "You know damn well you'll slaughter me from there."
She could not deny that, so she didn't.
"Yes. Will you surrender then?"
"I can't do that." His fingers twitched on the one pistol he had. "If I surrender I die no matter what happens. I can do that without giving up."
He smiled a fierce smile at her.
"So I won't."
He tried pushing himself to his feet, stumbled and staggered against the wall. She merely watched him do it.
"We were lied to, I think." She told him. "Of course."
Crichton was willing his body to catch up.
"Of course," he echoed.
"I understand, now." She turned her head slightly. "Someone comes."
A few moments later, light speared up the corridor and the hurrying shapes of a V'rahn and a squad of Enforcers - at least fifteen - burst into the far corridor. Left to his own devices, Stralh did his default duty - making certain his master's last order were carried out.
Seemingly unconcerned, Iskijji looked down at a now-armed Crichton.
"Neither of us, it seems," Her quills flared, and he knew she was simply flexing muscles, "will leave this place alive."
"Looks it." He pushed himself off the wall. Iskijji was surprised to find him draw alongside her, guns up and pointed down the corridor. They would be at them soon. He smiled grimly at her. "I think we should make sure they don't forget either one of us."
The crackle of shock rods arced through the air. The air stank of ozone.
"To die without a reason," she said, almost conversationally and Crichton marvelled that she had no fear. "This is the death all Se'em'aari wish to avoid."
She reached to the back of her neck and pulled. Her own Ai'shi came free. She reached into a pouch and retrieved those of her sisters and their masks. She gestured as if she meant to pass all to him.
"We have gifted you our names, Crichton. Will you remember us?"
"Not gonna matter in a minute, is it?"
"It will always matter," she told him firmly. He reached over and took them, stuffed them behind the chest plate of his armor. The Ai'shi went into a pocket.
"You will remember?" She asked again.
"Aikijji, the Eldest. Nihijji, and you, Iskijji. I'll remember."
Gonna be dead in a minute, he said in his head. What the frell does this matter?
The lights grew brighter. The squad saw them and Stralh ordered them on.
"I will tell you a true thing I have learned, Crichton," she told him, taking a few steps forward, "to survive, you must rid yourself of those things which make you weak – even if in the doing you break your own heart."
A blast of quills killed and caused the Enforcers to slow. Crichton sent a blast down the hall to help.
"I will cover your escape." Another volley of quills. "Go."
"What?"
"They, like so many," another volley, "think only of victory or defeat. They offer no choices but their way or death. We Se'em'aari understand that this is not important. Defeat, victory – nothing. We endure." Her large eyes turned to him. They were a startling green he finally saw. "Remember us."
He took a step backward.
"Wear our Ai'shi openly and no Se'em'aari will ever hunt you again."
She turned away, facing the oncoming Enforcers, proud and straight.
"Escape if you can."
"Look, Iskijji…" He flailed, not wanting to simply run, "there's no need for you to sacrifice yourself…" He took a step. "Come with me."
She looked back at him with questing and questioning eyes, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw something in them that was almost… affectionate. It shook him. She shook her head slowly.
"No. I will not die for no reason," she murmured, "I am mistress of my Art. I have chosen. I will endure."
She flared her quills to their maximum flare and touched a control on a bracelet on her wrist. He saw it glimmer and then symbols in it began to change.
A countdown!
"You have made it so."
He ran.
Crichton hit the end of the corridor just short of the Security bunker when a rolling explosion slammed up the hallway, blasting him into the wall and sending him spiraling into a grey unconsciousness.
