A note from Your Friendly Neighborhood Geist:
I beg you all forgive me, my dears, for taking so long with this. Sometimes inspiration is a tough thing to come by. So everyone thank TurnoftheSoul for threatening to stand over me with a whip and make me finish this tonight. This is, indeed, the last installment of Burning Bridges relating to that hot floozy doctor. I'll now be free to return to Ellie's story without this hanging over my head (though perhaps you've noticed Chapter 11 is up? Or perhaps not... I haven't gotten a single review for it...). I do hope you enjoy this wrap-up, and my only consolation for your patience is that this is literally twice as long as the longest chapter I've ever written (which was Chapter 11 of Of Worth... have you read it yet?).
We'll be back to your regularly scheduled shenanigans soon enough, don't worry, Ellie's too tenacious for me to give up on her.
Drop me a line and tell me what you think!
-Geist
Burning Bridges
Whatever Happened To That Hot Floozy Doctor? (Part 3)
She padded from her room two bells into the midwatch the next morning, taking care to make as little noise as possible in case the Throne Agent had actually fallen asleep last night. When she'd retreated to her bedroom, she'd left him sitting on the couch, seemingly lost in thought, and her final look back had absorbed the detail of the bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes, the dull, hollowed cast to the chisel of his features, the nervous fatigue slumping his broad shoulders.
He wasn't asleep now, and one glance at him in her kitchenette (hovering over a pot of recaf that looked like it could melt the armor off a strike cruiser) told her he hadn't been all night. She approached the cupboard next to him, pulling down a mug for each of them, and held his out with a tentative smile and a soft, "Hey."
"You're up early," there was a forced lightness to his voice as he poured out the thick brew, leaving no room for sugar or cream in either cup.
"Yeah… Got a surgery to prep for that none'a the interns ever done, so…" She ran her fingers through her the hair at her crown, taming it down into a bun and knotting it. "Breakfast?"
He placed the percolator down and held a cup out to her with a slow nod.
Shortly, as they sat on collapsible stools at the small table that folded down from the wall, eating amicably despite the ungodly hour and the length of her upcoming workday, she asked lightly, "Is the couch uncomfortable?"
He didn't seem to follow the question and replied, "No, it's fine." The small furrow at his brow registered his confusion.
"You just haven't slept since ya got here." She shrugged, picking up a forkful of what had been tinned fruit, "I was gonna offer my bed while I'm at work. You know, if ya thought it might help."
He looked at her sharply, then, affirming what the shadows beneath his eyes and his drawn countenance had indicated. "It's fine," he repeated stiffly, and went back to his meal.
"I've never been told that I snore, but if I've been keeping you up-"
"It's fine," there was a growl in his timbre as he leaned forward, hands on the table and slightly out of his seat, the move obviously meant to intimidate her into dropping the subject.
"It's obviously not," she, too, leaned forward, both her hands on the table by her dish as her voice came calm but inexorable. "Who's the doctor here? Who studied medicae for fifteen years before takin' an eight-year residency with the Order of the Torch in one of their hospitals treatin' what was left of Imperial Guard units after they got their asses kicked? Who scrabbled up through the hierarchy of medicae staff on this floatin' tub to become the Vice Chief Medicae Officer? Who's got the damned sense to recognize what's goin' on with you and who the frak has the qualifications to work on addressin' it? Only one person in this room and sure as the good Throne is gilded, darlin', it ain't you."
He was silent for a long moment: a long, dangerous moment during which the Vice Chief Medicae Officer of the Lacertus was (ironically) slightly concerned for her health, having perhaps pushed the Throne Agent too far. Her jaw was steeled, though, chin raised defiantly, and she watched every micro-expression that flickered across his face. He finally let out his breath, his hands retreating from the table. "I see them," he explained with a sort of quiet terror that struck her heart. "Every time I close my eyes I see them."
"The Reikers?" she searched his face, her brows crossed with concern.
"I don't even know why," he said it as if he were trying to brush off the memories, to trivialize it. "They were just two more on a long, long list, but…" he shook his head, lips pressed together, absorbed with the thoughts that must have been plaguing him since he arrived.
"But…?"
"But they were good citizens – ideal, even if they…" There was boundless frustration in his tone. "They were duty-bound; they followed the rules to the letter. They would have given anything – gladly – out of loyalty to the Throne. For the Emperor's lifeblood, they handed over their own daughter without complaint. They weren't heretics, they weren't even corrupt. All they did – their only crime – was trying to start a family they would've raised to be just like them if circumstances were different."
"They weren't different, though," she reminded him gently, and soothed, "you only-"
"I only vented their corpses into the Void after I murdered them," he spat it harshly, his breath coming with a hard sound of inhalation each time. "I only added them to the list, never thinking about them as human beings, as real people, until it was over. I became this cold, detached…" he searched for the right word, but it didn't come. "When I've killed – every time I've killed – there has been a purpose to it: a real purpose. That's all I felt until they were gone because I was sure – so sure – that there was something else, some unspeakable crime that needed the vengeance of Him-on-Terra to come down like an Astartes Thunder Hammer, and trust me, I looked. There was nothing. Nothing. And then I realized that I had no idea why – I hadn't given a damn why because I had thought I was so righteous – and it was too late. It's too fucking late." His hands slammed into the table and he stood up with alarming speed, leaning over it, over her, vicious in, "So don't you dare tell me you know-"
"That you've been awake for goin' on – from yer symptoms: I'm guessin' here – seventy-two hours and absorbed with self-recrimination for the majority of it?" she shot back at him. "That you've been holed up in my apartment for three nights with nothin' to do but hate yourself for every second of it?" There was fire and pity in her gaze as she emphasized every word, "I have seen men's minds break apart from less."
Those ice-blue eyes were boring into her with the rage of a cornered feral beast and he opened his mouth to snarl something back but she cut him off with a fierce, "No." He glowered at her and she, too, stood up. "No, you are goin' ta answer one question for me, Throne Agent. One." Her palms were set on the table and she leaned towards him, refusing to back down as she demanded, "Would you ever do that again?"
She saw his pupils dilate, startled by the question; the rage died in his eyes right there. She watched his head fall forward a little, leaning heavily into the table now. He looked away from her, staring down at his almost-empty plate. After some time, his shoulders, which had fallen before, slowly squared, his back straightened, and he lifted his head. His gaze, his stance, his voice – they were filled with tempered, blued steel and quiet resolve. "No. I am no assassin, no mercenary, no sellsword. I am a soldier. I fight for a cause."
She watched him for a long moment and then, as if the entire thing had only been a scene from a play they were enacting and had now completed, a smile with perfect white teeth broke across her face, forcing the apples of her cheeks up. She sat back down and picked up her mug, crossing one unfairly long leg over the other and taking a sip.
He stared down at her for a long moment, the atmosphere charged with the memory of the argument and her self-satisfaction. "You-"
"Are a doctor," she finished for him, the smile turning from smug to gentle in an instant.
He nodded thoughtfully and sat back down to finish his meal.
He was sitting on her couch when she exited her room, dressed for work and set to leave. He didn't look up. She could see his hands moving across her coffee table. His gloves were off now, she supposed to avoid messing them, and she noticed one of his hands had a soft golden sheen to it; fully articulated and functioning with all the nuance of a natural hand, this was truly a masterfully crafted augmentic. She took in the area of his wrist, the sleeve rolled slightly, and saw no seam – it must have gone up further; a small part of her idly wondered how he'd lost it, and what else he'd had replaced, but it seemed particularly coarse to ask.
Her eyes drifted back to his hands and it was then that she realized he was cleaning his pistols, broken down into parts and laid out in precise order. He was wiping residue off a barrel briskly, and she sat on the sofa's armrest, quietly announcing, "So, I'm off ta work now."
He nodded, still not looking up. There was a single-minded focus to his actions, and his hands moved surely, probably having done this a thousand times before.
Clearing her throat, she mentioned, "I, uh – I'm gonna be out later'n usual. Friend needed leave so I picked up his shift."
He nodded again.
"If you get hungry there's some bread – cheese – couple slices'a roast."
She received another nod as he began to reassemble one of the weapons.
He was acting strangely, even for a Throne Agent. Hoping to draw him out after their little therapy session over breakfast, she offered helpfully, "Do you want me to bring anythin' back for ya?"
He shook his head slowly, reattaching the slide and letting it shift back into its proper place.
"Right… I'll, uh – I'll see you later then," he still hadn't looked toward her and a nervousness began in the pit of her stomach. He was still peeved at her. The self-proclaimed and proven killer residing in her living room was still peeved at her. That prickling sensation that had woken her when he first came here was back, but now it wasn't concerned about gazes at her hind-quarters. It was wondering if she'd jostled him enough to call his master. Maybe he would change his mind… Maybe he wouldn't want her anymore. Maybe she'd pushed too hard this morning, or asked too many questions. There was nothing she could do if that were the case, and there was only one acceptable outcome for an Inquisitor that paranoid. With an unsure trepidation, she bid, "Have a good day." She rose to move toward the door, even had a hand outstretched for her lab coat on its peg.
One of his hands closed firmly around her other wrist and her head whipped around to him. He was staring up at her, now, with those ice-blue eyes piercing her, still shadowed underneath, his face still grim, troubled, practically screaming out to her. Yes, there was a mask of neutrality but she knew human musculature. She knew where to see emotions lying beneath that. She carefully arranged her mouth into an appeasing smile and raised her eyebrows as if to prompt him to explain. His lips slowly mimicked hers, and though it was forced, the smile itself was particularly charming. "You, too," he murmured, and released her.
She left her rooms quickly and didn't look back.
She opened the door to her quarters carefully that night and kept her front toward the room. He was still on her couch, forearms resting on his knees, fingers laced together. His head had been hanging forward until the door opened and he faced it with an uncanny speed; the tension that had suddenly coalesced into his form eased out upon meeting her eyes. He even attempted a smile. She locked the door behind her and moved into the room, one side of her mouth quirking up to him as she gave a small wave and passed him, headed toward the kitchen.
She reached up at a cabinet and turned her head to ask over her shoulder if he were hungry, but only got so far as, "Gav-" because he had followed her silently and was standing right behind her. She jumped like a cat out of its skin and twisted to face him, her heart going into overdrive and her eyes darting down towards the pistol strapped to each thigh and then back up.
He must have found this amusing because an easy smirk was lighting his features and he took another step forward. Now, Trixie Gunn was particularly tall for a woman, an aspect she enhanced regularly with what even the vainest of women would call impractically high heels (which she hadn't gotten around to taking off yet), but Gavin Hortz was staring down at her from a superior height and his tone was ultra-calm and slightly smug as he replied, "Yes?"
Her turquoise eyes were searching his face for traces of danger, of what had alarmed her this morning and set her on edge in his presence now. It was there, beneath the smile, temporarily forgotten: distinct unease and deep exhaustion. It was a problem, yes, but it didn't seem to be an immediate danger. No, just like the circumstances under which they'd met, if he'd gotten an order to dispose of her for being unwanted, knowing too much, or just plain pissing him off, he could have easily gotten the drop on her as she came through the door. This was him reaching out to her, asking for something else entirely. She just wasn't sure what it was. She carefully licked the seam of her suddenly dry lips and quirked them up to match his. "Hungry?"
He leaned forward slightly, his arm – the natural one – coming up beside her, hemming her in. "Famished," he whispered, and opened the cabinet she'd originally intended to with a rakish grin. He pulled down a tin of vegetables and offered it to her. Her fingers wrapped around, brushing against his, and she pulled it back towards her, but he didn't let go.
She tugged on the tin again, and when she couldn't free it from his grip she insisted with a laugh, "I thought you just said you were ready for me to start dinner."
"I said," he corrected as he released the tin to her but didn't step back, "that I was hungry."
"Then you," she put two fingers to his chest and pushed him a step back with a playful smirk, "should've eaten the leftovers."
"You, uh… you think you migh' get some sleep tonight?" She was standing at the sink, washing the dishes from dinner. It was nearing the end of the first watch, but she knew if she let them sit they'd never get done.
He was close to her side and handed out his plate with a wordless shrug, as if to say that it didn't matter. She snatched it with an eye-roll and a bit of sass and scrubbed at it, mentioning as she rinsed, "I might be able ta help with that part, too. There's a whole gamut'a tricks up my sleeve." She glanced at him over her shoulder with a half-smirk, "I am a doctor, you know."
"What would you recommend?" he was drying the cutlery and placing it back in its drawer, watching her with interest.
"Warm milk, too much amasec, incredible sex, an incredibly borin' book, back rub, soothin' music, belladonna and poppy, a stronger cocktail'a goodies from the pharmacy, or a combination of any of the aforementioned items, though I'd suggest not mixin' the milk'r drugs with the amasec," she rattled off the list like it was something she regularly conveyed to patients complaining of insomnia.
He seemed to be considering each item in turn as he dried a plate, mulling them all over. She was inspecting his face, watching the nuance of expression, waiting… And there it was: she could practically see the mental double-take at one of the listed items and couldn't quite help the impish chuckle that escaped her. With an almost predatory smile, he leaned over her as she faced him, resting against the sink, and put the plate away just past her head before he replied, "Sex, back rub, and amasec sounds like a particularly effective combination of treatments. Not necessarily in that order, of course…" he paused, looking away thoughtfully for a moment, and then turned his face back down to her, "On second thought that order sounds just fine to me."
"Massage first," she told him firmly, crossing her arms beneath her generous bust while half-smiling up at him. "I don't want you pullin' anythin'."
He lifted both brows, ceding to her statement with a playful, "Whatever the doctor orders."
"Oh," there was something both enticing and vaguely threatening in the shine of her eyes and the wickedness of her grin, and she hooked one finger beneath his collar, twisting it and drawing him a little closer as she breathed, "Don't tempt me, darlin'."
"Damn shame," she murmured, some five hours later as she shifted the sheet to cover her chest and reached over Gavin Hortz's prone form to silence the first sound of her morning alarm.
He was still panting a bit from their until recent exertions, and still hadn't gotten any sleep, but his eyes were closed and he didn't even crack one to watch her as he answered with a quiet, "Hmm?" that sounded just on the edge of slumber.
"Never did get around to that amasec," she softly chuckled and smoothed his sweat-dampened hair off his forehead fondly. She lifted herself from bed and approached her closet to retrieve her clothing for the day. Work was going to seem interminable after the double shift she'd pulled yesterday and not a moment of shut-eye, but him sleeping the entire time she was out was the best progress she could ask for.
From across the room she heard a mumbled, "Later…" as he turned onto his side, and a corner of her mouth quirked up as she headed for the shower.
He was sleeping soundly when she peeked through the door just before she left for work.
Progress, indeed.
Things had settled into an easy rhythm in the following week. She had begun to quietly wrap certain things at work up, files and studies and extended patient charts, and organized them carefully so that when someone else came in to take over for her, the transition would be fraught with none of the typical upheaval. She wrote, signed, and sealed letters of recommendation for Maggie and Thad, and a brief missive to the Chief Medicae Officer stating that her best successor would be Lourdes, though anyone else could perform her duties satisfactorily except for Khaan.
Things had settled at home, too, which was to say that the good Mister Hortz had settled into her bed and an easy camaraderie formed between them now that he was sleeping and exercising regularly. She didn't ask many questions about what would happen when they reached port, about her future master, about what would be expected of her – those were all things she would find out in time, and she had a strong suspicion that he wouldn't be particularly loquacious or possibly even know for sure. He did, however, amuse them both with at-times hysterically gritty details of some of his previous missions. She honestly hadn't thought that a Throne Agent could be this… human. But then, Trixie mused, she'd been chosen, too.
She had playfully winked at him and blown him a kiss as she left for work that morning after reminding him it was a fairly slow-scheduled day, and she might make it back for lunch. Now she was in the office, compiling a list of procedures she thought this or that intern needed to repeat, along with suggestions for fields of specialization. She had, sometime in the past week, ceased to think of it as her office, as that she would be losing it soon – and after all that work to get it, she'd be essentially handing it over without a fight to keep it, without fuss, without even a word or writ of her intent to leave. Though Gavin had never said, she got the distinct impression that she wasn't supposed to mention this to anyone. If someone needed to know, they'd be informed. She couldn't quite imagine –
The ship shook violently beneath her in the middle of her musing. Her hands came out to steady herself as she closed her notes, locked them in a drawer, and stood quickly, canting her head to one side. The ship shook again and she swore as the general alarm rang out. This was no drill. With alacrity and purpose one couldn't quite imagine for a woman in heels that tall, she strode from the office into the adjoining operating room where one of the lower-ranked churgeons was busy with a broken arm. The ship shook and alarm sounded once more and she interrupted the man with a sharp look, sedated his patient, and called up the stasis field.
Now, from many years aboard a warship, Doctor Gunn knew there were a great number of things that could cause a general alarm: failure in any piece of machinery, inappropriate oxygen levels, fire in a hold, or… her heart fell. That was a security alarm, followed quickly by a breach and then boarding. This… this was bad.
Magdela ripped through the office to find her and gasped, "I don't think it's a drill." Trixie nodded tersely to confirm that and strode back into the office, pressing the vox for the medicae bay. Her voice came calm and firm as she announced, "Attention medicae, any delicate work, you stasis immediately; I need reports stat."
Nothing had been damaged, no one harmed more than a jostle, but no one knew what was going on. She called to the nearest provost station, but received nothing more than a static line. There was something on the ship. She didn't know what, she didn't know where, and the in-house line was clamoring with everyone turning to her for instructions. Some of the veteran staff had recognized the alarm and explained it to the others. Panic was rising.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she motioned to Maggie to join her. In a low, terse voice, she instructed, "I need ya ta work crowd control for me, love. Got it?"
The girl obviously had no idea what she was talking about.
Trixie took her by the shoulders. "Go aft. Start collectin' everyone you see's you work yer way abeam." Thad walked through the door and she turned her head quickly before looking back at her other intern. "Bring'em all up here to the foremost bay, closest to the gangway, then drop the e-bulkheads t'ward the exterior'a the ship. Anythin' hits the outside I don't want you sucked out, right?" The girl nodded tremulously and Trixie kissed her forehead before releasing her. "Good girl. Now go."
"What can I – damn that's a big gun!" Thad had moved toward her and she toward her desk, unlocking a file drawer and pulling out a standard, loaded hand-cannon and spare clip.
She pushed them into his hands and barked, "Come with me," before taking off toward the gangway. Once there, she opened the door and scanned the halls that created the T-junction here. There was some minor structural damage, but otherwise things seemed intact. People were running about without purpose or direction, but she couldn't see any pressing threat. "You know where the neares' provos' station is?"
He looked around blankly for a moment and then faced toward the hall across from them unsurely. She grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed down the hall he faced with her hand flat. "Down there – past vendin'. Turn right, end'a the hall. Anyone you see don't have a station ta man, you send'em here. Take this," she handed him a portable vox, "find ou' wha' we're up against and bring them guards back here." He took a step to move off but she grasped the sleeve of his shirt, jerking him around to face her, her eyes blazing. "Thad, you run like you never done it before." He nodded once, took a breath, and bolted off.
Down the adjacent gangway she heard a panicked scream, followed by the sound of a few shots. She sprinted towards the sound of the fray, pointing the people she passed back towards the bay with hissed instructions. At the end, she peered around the corner and her blood ran cold. There were surprisingly few bodies, but all those on the ground had been irreparably pierced by splinter rounds. Beyond them was uninhabited space and further beyond was the enemy, some dragging captive humans back and others advancing.
She pulled back quickly, bolting back toward the office to see the provost arriving just as she did. The sergeant motioned to her and conveyed tightly, "Doctor, you should join your staff, we've been boarded-"
"By Dark Eldar," she snapped, pointing to the direction she'd just come from. "They're down there. Anythin' human left from the direction you came?"
"Just these," he pointed to perhaps a dozen and a half people tagging with them.
"In there," she opened the door to the office; it was the only way remaining to access the bay where the other people huddled. As they passed, she scanned faces, realizing that there was one she'd expected not among them. Sealing the door, she turned to the sergeant with a dreadfully quiet voice, "My intern?"
"Captured, Doctor, you need to-"
"Your men have grenades?" He nodded dumbly. "There's nothin' we want comin' through from that direction, so you pop a few and take that passage out. This way we only gotta worry 'bout the one."
The men complied and the sergeant took her by the arm. "Ma'am you need to-" there was an inhuman screech at the end of the hall and she turned to it just in time to let three splinter rounds sing by her head. Unfortunately the sergeant wasn't so quick.
Cursing and shaking his spasming form from her, she growled at the provost squad behind her, "Stay clear. Get into cover." There was a small group of the boarders gathering at the hall, having, it seemed, realized that there was more prey down this direction.
She tilted her jaw until her neck cracked. Cords of muscle down her arm were hardening into something stronger than bone. She glowered down the hall, planting herself, and her teeth sharpened into tiny daggers, growing so long she couldn't close her mouth past the snarl curling her lip.
She knew what was coming.
They advanced.
This was why she didn't cower with the medicae staff.
This was why she couldn't lie to little Ellie Reiker when she said she was a monster.
She was.
You've got to be shitting me.
It was the only coherent thought that had accompanied the alarms. By the time the boarding call had rang out, he'd thrown on all his gear.
Of course. Because nothing could ever be simple…
He couldn't lie to himself: he may often grouse about it, but this fight – the good fight – was what he lived for. Doubt, recrimination, sweet indulgence – he had room for none of them as he fulfilled his purpose. From the moment he opened the door to the hall, the universe pared down to him, his weapons, his enemies, and his goal. Nothing else mattered.
By now he'd made it to the deck the medical bay occupied; he'd slaughtered every single xenos mongrel he'd come across; he'd paused long enough to pull the uniform off a dead provost so he wouldn't have to sneak around; when the opportunity presented itself he'd even saved a few non-essential people.
Non-essential, that was, because the only legitimately essential person was one impossibly hot blonde doctor who had better be keeping her stubborn head down in a sealed room somewhere. If she got herself killed – if she got captured… well he might as well just hand himself over to the Dark Eldar for torture and spare the geriatric the trouble. The old man hadn't sent him here 'to kill the Reikers and, if you get around to it, Gavin my boy, be so good as to pick the churgeon up.' They were equally primary objectives. Her safety was on him. The fact that they were separated by miles of ship and an unknown number of foes would mean nothing to his master if he failed.
So here he was, tearing through oddly deserted corridors, following signs for the medicae bay. There were signs of struggle lingering, las blasts on the walls from missed shots, blood spatter and pooling, a body here or there, but significantly less than on the decks he'd passed through on his way. He also didn't see a single one of the vile little xenos bastards, didn't hear screams from the living being dragged a-
What was this, now?
Rounding a corner (the plaque said the medicae bay was at the end of this hall), he stopped short; there was a pocket of them, half a dozen, tearing at a wall of slag and scrap that cut off the path to the infirmary.
Like fish in a barrel.
Two of them were down, twin shots from his twin bolt pistols sailed down a forty meter hall into the back of unsuspecting heads with what sounded like a single pistol report before the noise alerted the rest and spurred them to turn. A wave of splinters and a pair of shuriken sailed at him and he ducked back around the corner, narrowly avoiding them. What he wouldn't have given for his auto-cannon right now. But no: undercover missions meant you kept your head down, didn't bring anything that would attract attention, and that meant no grenades…
One of the Dark Eldar breached Gavin's cover and he picked it off with a clean shot to the throat. A wicked curved blade flashed around the corner toward his neck, but he grabbed the frail wrist holding it with one hand, wrenched it away with the other, and drove the blade through the pit of the arm he held and into the chest cavity with a satisfying squelch. The skewered corpse absorbed the next volley as he advanced down the hall, employing it as a shield.
Now a bolt round wouldn't have time to prime this close to a target; he'd made a point of explaining to V the very first time they met: it would pass clean through then prime, leaving the target with a through-and-through but nothing as devastating as a full hit would be. Of course, after it passed through point-blank, it would prime. That was why he placed the end of the barrel to his meat-shield and fired through it semi-auto. The Dark Eldar he'd taken aim on dodged from the first two shots and into the third and fourth; it slumped against the slag-and-scrap wall with a muted gurgle.
Deciding that he'd had quite enough of this, he roughly shoved the corpse at its only living ally and used the temporary distraction to crack his augmentic fist into the thing's temple. He ripped the helmet off, revealing the loathsome bone-white face with unfocused eyes, and proceeded to pound its face with his metal hand, past the crunch of facial bone and dribble of blood from the nostrils, until he was quite sure fragments of skull had pierced brain.
Dropping the last corpse, he looked to the makeshift wall blocking his progress and both cursed and blessed whoever had the foresight to obstruct the passage. Backtracking to where he'd entered the floor took far too many long minutes of him full-on running; there was only one other direction available from there, so he continued on, finally glancing an arrow and the shipboard symbol for the med-bay. He tore down the hall, the sound of stray shots echoing down the eerily empty passages at him, until he reached the end and peered around the corner.
The first thing he noticed toward the end of the hall was that there was, quite literally, a span of perhaps fifteen meters in which xenos corpses contortedly, gorily splayed knee-deep. Five of the filthy things were wading through this obstacle to reach beyond where…
He began moving before his mind even wrapped around what he'd seen. Beyond the littered terrain there was a ten meter break and then waist-high cover, behind which the provosts were crouched; they sporadically popped up to take poorly-aimed shots. In that ten meter break there were currently three Dark Eldar, closing in on one human – specifically the one human upon which his entire mission hinged. And she was…
He took a quick second to aim and one of the five encroaching foes crumpled to join its mangled mates.
In the melee zone he watched with a sort of morbid fascination as the woman – the sweet woman he'd come to claim for Mordekai – held one of the xenos scum at bay, one hand extended to it in a clenching gesture he was at once sure had everything to do with the constricted alien form, its eyes bulging obscenely, face purpling from lack of breath. This gesture was negligent, though, compared to the brutal, impossibly ripped and hardened opposite arm, which cracked into enemy skull, sending its owner careening away. The third took a swing at her with a dagger he knew must've been coated in lethal poison; it ripped into her belly, slicing through the already half-shredded fabric of her blouse.
As if this was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, she snatched the thing by the chest of its armor, dragging it to mere inches from her, and sank her mouthful of two-inch long fangs into its jugular, clamping her jaws together and then shoving the thing away, tearing out its throat and splashing near-black ichor across a face already smeared with the blood of her enemies. With her distracted, the second warrior sank a curved blade almost halfway into her shoulder. Her face snapped toward it faster than he'd ever seen or imagined she could move, and she spit its comrade's blood directly into its eyes. Now that was a move that brought back memories.
It staggered back as she dropped the lifelessly crushed corpse, focusing with burning eyes on the one sole survivor in range. At first he thought nothing was happening to it, but its face was reddening, purpling. She looked on contemptuously as it shivered violently; he knew: she was boiling its blood in its veins. Its heart and brain detonated from its body, and just as casually she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The wounds in her newly exposed flesh mended as if nothing had touched her.
A volley of sad shots came from the provost retinue behind her, missing pathetically, and he dropped another advancing foe. Her eyes landed on him, clearly berserk, and she growled, "Git yer ass back in cover," arcs of lightening shot from her off-hand, sizzling through the warrior closest to her, "an' hold the line."
He chuckled at that, felled another two, each with a well-aimed shot, and waded through the bodies to stand next to her and fight.
Later, when the whole ship had been cleared, the wounded flowed into the bay like an incoming tide. She'd put Maggie and one of Lourde's interns on triage. Twenty-four hours into cleanup, she'd ordered half the staff to go and rest. When they returned, the other half received the same orders. Trixie herself, of course, operated and stitched and detoxed and dosed for three solid days before someone insisted that the over four-thousand casualties were now well in hand and shouldn't she really go get some rest? Wearily, she nodded, knowing that when they made port, delayed only by a few days, she would be leaving, and all the careful preparation she'd lain out to handle the transition of her departure would be next to useless.
"Your impression, Gavin?" The crackle of the vox only enhanced the characteristic gravel of the voice.
That woman… after her coquettishly soothing presence, after she'd bullied and tricked him into addressing his guilt, after she'd outrageously "administered insomnia therapy", after her uninstructed discretion, he'd been so sure he knew exactly what he'd be handing over, had convinced himself he knew all that Trixie Gunn had to offer. The carpet of dead bodies, the dirk-like teeth dripping with xenos blood, the hundred and twenty-odd survivors tucked safely away behind her, and seventy-two hours of tireless doctoring to clean this mess up had forced him to consider he'd been very, very wrong. V was a biomancer: he'd seen her smash and bite like that, but he knew she drew a line; he'd found out firsthand that whatever compunction his partner had that stopped her from crushing internal organs and boiling blood, Trixie Gunn lacked. V fought like a soldier: utterly focused, tactically cunning… the doctor fought with abandon. She fought like a rabid monster. He met the Lord Inquisitor's eye through the pictscreen, and replied, "Honestly? We need her a lot more than she needs us."
And the shadow of a smirk passed over the corner of Pieter Mordekai's mouth.
Ah! I'm so sorry I forgot spacing breaks! Here! Fixed!