Thanks for reading. Thanks to the fellas over at UnrealSP dot org who saw fit to add me to their awsm fanfiction page.
Apparently the theme song of this chapter is "Lions" by Lights because I listened to it umpteen times while writing. =_=
Chapter Fifteen: Holy Ground
Bluff Eversmoking Monastery was basking beneath winter storm clouds and the threat of heavy rain as General Bharuk's second lieutenant made his way slowly towards the Nali cell block to perform another tedious round of "guard shuffling".
Three Krall, crouched in a circle in the middle of the cell block floor and deeply engrossed with a game played with a trio of painted dice, swiveled their heads lazily towards the stone archway as the Skaarj warrior entered the room. One of them yawned and, after a tense moment, the three turned their attention back to their game of death bones. The warrior snorted disdainfully at the group and instead approached the scout who was dutifully patrolling the cell block.
"You are to go guard the land bridge for now," he said brusquely. "I will take this post until General Bharuk gives us further orders."
The scout saluted to officially acknowledge the new order, and then, as an afterthought, said, "You heard the news about General Shas ul-hara, did you not?"
The warrior snorted, tossing his head. "No doubt it is propaganda spread by these idiot Krall we have to babysit. I'm not surprised you believe that nonsense. Did you actually listen to what was said? They claimed that a Terran took down both the General and a fully-grown Titan. You're being ridiculous. Now go do your job."
The scout turned on his heel and stalked off, more puzzled than angry. He thought he had heard two of his commanding officers discussing complaints being issued because of a creature that was working methodically through major Skaarj facilities and causing major damage to each one. No one was entirely sure of what the creature was, since the soldiers who were dispatched to apprehend the intruder were all slaughtered. The rumors were few and far between, but they pervaded the warrior ranks nevertheless. It was always news when one of the commanding officers was rumored to have been killed. That affected the chain of command that reached down to even the youngest Skaarj pupae.
The scout pushed open the heavy main doors of the monastery, shivering as a blast of cold air slammed into his body. The wind was wild and frigid above the lake, and the surrounding mountains were capped with snow. Even though he had been stationed at the Monastery for nearly a year, the scout had yet to acclimate to nearly permanent winter conditions. It didn't help that he was a cold blooded creature, but, after all, the Queen demanded that all of Na Pali be subjugated, the cold weather notwithstanding. At least he wasn't stationed at Gala's Peak.
He began his slow patrol, walking down the sloping land bridge that led from the Monastery to the heavy wooden drawbridge that separated the wind-washed plateau from the rest of the world. There were Skaarj stationed on the other side of the gate, he knew, but he needn't bother trying to communicate with them. He didn't even know why this particular route was necessary. If anything was coming towards the Monastery, the Skaarj at the gate would take care of it. Even though the bluff only sported ten Skaarj and a handful of Krall, there were no qualms about a lack of security. Very few of the native creatures on Na Pali were an equal match for a Skaarj of any caste.
The scout looked at the ground as he walked. Na Pali had been ridiculously easy to conquer. The Nali could be made to do whatever the Skaarj wished of them, and the population was so plentiful that the Skaarj could slaughter as many of the four-armed innocents as they wished to keep order, and there would never be a shortage of workers. Well, that's what it had been like in the previous years. The scout wasn't too sure how the Nali civilization was faring now. Talk of the Messiah had died down months ago when that Terran woman had botched her escape from the Monastery; the Nali did their jobs quietly and without protest. The scout almost missed seeing their spirits crushed by labor and maltreatment. Now their eyes held nothing but despair; their supposed messiah was dead.
Either way, the scout was more interested in the strange stories of the 'intruder'. Even though the warrior didn't fully believe in the rumor, the scout was sure that it held some truth. The Skaarj stationed at the Dark Arena hadn't been heard from in months, and with most of Skaarj energy being exerted in Tarydium extraction, there simply wasn't enough time to "check up" on that particular facility. Even more interesting was that the trajectory that the 'intruder' was taking didn't bring it anywhere near the Dark Arena, so even if the stories of a Terran killing a Titan weren't true, something was definitely working its way through other Skaarj bases and causing… incidents.
It was an impressive story to hear, at least. According to reports the creature was even smaller than a Nali but had managed to derail several Tarydium and Nali enslavement operations and kill several fairly important berserkers.
Behind him, the thick wood of the gate creaked and gave a low groan. The Skaarj turned halfway, a puzzled growl rising into his throat. The gate was slowly opening.
"What is the matter?" the scout called. "Have you completed your shift already?"
He froze. The white wisp of flesh slowly being revealed by the gate was definitely not the gate guard. When the gate was opened far enough to show the creature's entire body, the scout realized, with a start, that it was pointing something at him.
This realization was the last fully formed thought in his mind, as the sudden shock of an .80 caliber bullet cut cleanly through his crown and sent him crumpling to the ground. He was dead before the dust settled around his body.
Lowering her Terran trooper rifle, 849 sneezed, wiping her nose along her bare forearm.
The rifle's sharp echo against the surrounding mountains was loud enough to alert her enemies for miles, but the prisoner merely shrugged her latest acquisition onto her back, a GES Biorifle. Its shape reminded her of a portable vacuum cleaner whose intake bag she could carry on her back, but instead of carting around dust bunnies and dropped Cheerios, the burden she carried was highly corrosive Tarydium waste that could be lobbed in wads of varying sizes at her enemies. It was a heavy weapon to drag around and it made her smell like rotting oranges, but she deemed that it was worth it. At least for now, until she found who she was looking for and could unload some of her weaponry onto the Terran she had found out about after she had left the ISV-Kran.
Translator messages she had picked up through her rather rapid ascension through the Na Pali monument of the Sunspire told of three travelers: Alexi Onalopov and Kira and Karl Argmanov. They had left the wreck of the ship early after the crash with some of their crewmembers. However, events had transpired that had driven them from their shipmates. They were apprehended and, 849 learned after stumbling across two corpses, killed.
Except Kira.
For some reason, Kira had been kidnapped by the Krall that had killed her brother and her fiancée.
And she had been brought here.
849 swept her eyes over the sprawling brick building looming in front of her. According to all of the messages she had read, this Kira person was obviously loved by her teammates. Several rescue parties had been trailing her for weeks, even after the death of the two other members of her group.
She was almost excited. It was of little consequence that she wouldn't be able to understand Moscow-born Argmanov without using her Universal Translator.
She was going to have a friend soon.
And so she began to move.
Bharuk was on his way to the walkway that led down the side of the bluff when he first caught the wafting scent of blood and… something else. Something alien.
Striding purposefully through the Monastery's grounds, he looked around to see if anything was disturbed. There were one or two Nali feeding the cows and rabbits in the open barn off to the left; he shoved them aside as he followed the smell that made his skin tingle.
When he saw the sprawling carcass of one of his scouts lying in a heap on the land bridge, he knew.
When he reached the bottom of the path, he saw two Krall guards sprawled on the ground. There was a heavy and caustic taste in the air that he recognized as Tarydium waste. He followed the corridor into the bowels of the sewage facilities that wound through the rock below the monastery, stepping over the carcasses of more Skaarj scouts and Krall gaurds than he was comfortable with seeing.
The smell was getting stronger. His pace increased until he stepped out onto a system of wooden planks that were suspended over water. Across the room from him was an elite Krall—Grorq, standing over the twitching remains of one of his Krall lieutenants.
Grorq turned to him. "It came without warning, sir," he said stiffly. "I didn't even have time to react before it dove into the water below us. It's got a Biorifle. Nasty stuff."
"You didn't have time to react because you are an idiot," Bharuk grunted. "We must kill it. It is a Terran, is it not?"
The Krall opened his mouth, his tongue lolling over his bottom jaw. "Yes, sir," he said.
Bharuk snorted with laughter. "Too bad we killed the pitiful egg-layer that the Nali thought was their warrior princess, eh? The Nali won't help this Terran and it's probably lost already. It won't take long for me to dispatch it."
Grorq cast a sideways glance to his Skaarj overseer. I cannot believe how arrogant Skaarj are. This Terran has wiped out more than half of our forces already.
The Skaarj shoved him forwards. "These tunnels all lead towards the prison block. I shall go back up and round the Terran off from the main doors. You follow it through the pipelines and flush it out."
Swallowing his comment—you assume that it will wait around for you to corner it—the Krall took a breath and plunged into the brackish water below.
Bharuk turned on his heel and sprinted towards the waning sunlight outside.
Squelch.
The giblets of three Krall and a Skaarj warrior bounced along the mossy floor of the room that 849 had just entered. She checked the ammunition readout on her GES Biorifle and smiled to herself. She had more than half a tank, which meant she had three more fully-charged shots of instantly fatal sludge-bombs to use. She was surprised at how violently the byproduct reacted with oxygen when it was discharged. The group of aliens playing their inane little dice game didn't even have a chance to look up before she turned all four of them into puddles of meat.
"Kira?" she called. No answer. She sighed. She had been calling the other woman's name for a while but had been answered with nothing but the sound of wind or the snarls of Skaarj.
She looked around, stepping out of the low pool of water that the tunnel she had been traveling through spit her into. There were a series of doors on the opposite wall; four on the bottom and four on the open floor above them. There was a bench and several chairs in front of these doors, and as 849 approached she found a ragged journal crumpled on the floor in front of one of the doors.
This must be a prison, she thought, picking up the journal and placing it on the table. Opening it, she found, as she expected, the smooth, flowing script of the Nali's language.
This could be helpful.
She bent down, turning on her Universal Translator and scanning the page. The words took a while to appear on the screen.
I have discovered a secret! Last night I snuck out of my hiding place and swam through the pipes to the prison. They have captured a girl! The Krall sergeant took two boots in the mouth when he approached her. Haha. I can only laugh at their stupidity.
849 chuckled softly. The second entry, however, was a bit more troubling.
The woman they captured is scheduled to be executed. I cannot let this happen! As foolish as it sounds I will attempt to sneak her out of the prison cell through our secret caves. From there she can escape to the—
She never got to read the rest. The skin on the back of her neck prickled and she reflexively whirled around, holding the Translator in front of her face as a Skaarj's Razik blades zeroed in on her throat. The blades snagged against the machine and glanced off, throwing the lizard man off balance. 849 lobbed the Translator at its head and, stuffing the journal page into her pocket, leaped into a fighting position.
The thrown Translator didn't do much except make the Skaarj angry, but she wasn't expecting it to do that much damage. She was a little upset with herself that she had used such a delicate instrument like a baseball, but she couldn't help her trigger reactions.
The Skaarj in front of her had risen up on the balls of his feet and was bouncing lightly back and forth, baiting her hand, confusing her. He'd either jump at her or dodge or—
He jumped. She leaped backwards and grasped for the nozzle of the GES Biorifle. She squeezed down on the trigger and sprayed the Skaarj with green slime. It darted backwards and flung a pair of electrical charges towards her. Easily avoiding them, she began charging a larger wad of Tarydium sludge. If she could just let the ammunition charge long enough, she'd be able to lob a fatal wad towards the Skaarj and eliminate her current problem with one clean hit.
But something hit her in the back, and suddenly the smell of rotting fruit was ripe in the air as the Biorifle ruptured, spilling its toxic substance down her legs. She shrieked as she was gripped from behind and tossed easily into the low pool of water she had just come through. Struggling out of the arm straps, she saw a Krall lumber out of the shadows, twirling his concussion staff like a baton.
He must have come out of the tunnel. Shit.
The quarters were too close for her regular rifle. She grabbed her Enforcer and aimed it at the Skaarj. The Krall, however, had other ideas, and charged her again.
They're covering for each other?
She dashed forwards, slipping away from the reaching talons, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went wide but caused the Skaarj to launch itself into a roll. Seizing the opportunity, 849 managed to connect with three bullets into the Skaarj's tumbling body. It snarled when it stood up again, bleeding heavily, and, to her surprise, immediately running towards her. She didn't have much time to react as the huge creature bore down on her, revealing another surprise: it had two pairs of Razik blades attached to its wrists. In desperation 849 unslung her rifle and swung the butt of the weapon around and down, catching the Skaarj's arm by pure chance. The Razik blades were forced down to the mossy ground and, caught between the Terran weapon and the cold marble floor, snapped in half. Chambering the weapon again, the prisoner slammed the side of the gun into the Skaarj's side where she saw a trickle of blood from one of her bullets. The lizard collapsed.
Behind her, the Krall was getting ready for an assault of his own. The huge-jawed monster was slightly more agile than the Skaarj, and the way it wielded its staff was both impressive and fearful. More than once she was a little late in ducking and she could actually see her reflection in the glossy metal as it passed mere millimeters over her head. Sometimes the Krall abandoned its precise swinging with the staff and stepped in close to slash at her with its claws or kick her legs out from under her. To make matters worse, the Skaarj had rejoined the fight, and was standing at a distance, peppering her body with painful electrical shocks. Soon she was panting and sweating and bleeding and considering fleeing the situation.
Gotta get more ammunition, she thought, feeling the eerie lack of weight in her pistol that told her she was going to be in a lot of trouble within a few trigger pulls. For some reason she kept missing the damn creature. Of course she had never been up against a Krall-Skaarj team before.
The two aliens suddenly backed off, circling around her like a pair of sharks. She held her Enforcer at the ready and turned in a slow circle with them, never allowing them to see her back. They would occasionally lunge, one at a time, towards her, but her guard was up, and each time she evaded their blows. She was wounded but she was quick.
"I'll dance with you," she whispered on a shuddering breath.
She chanced a glance around her. She could always escape through the pool, if worst came to worst—but it was filled with Tarydium sludge now. There was a door off to her left somewhere—
The Krall feigned a lunge towards her and without thinking 849 stepped back, turning her body fully away from the Skaarj. The huge lizard slipped forwards and grabbed her throat with a hand that was the size of a dinner plate, erasing any thoughts of escape from her mind. Her arms immediately went up she fired her Enforcer, point-blank, into the Skaarj's chest. The sound of empty shells clattering on the floor was almost musical.
Die die die die die die—
"Guh!" 849's face contorted into a snarl as the Krall's concussion staff slammed into the small of her back. Despite her best efforts, she went down on one knee and lost her grip on the warrior's Razik blades. The Skaarj took the opportunity to slash down with his newly free arm, scoring two wicked lines down the right side of the woman's face. She went down heavily but sprang back to her feet in a desperate attempt to get her bearings, shaking her head to get the blood away from her eyes. She knew that to go down was to die.
"This pathetic thing can actually fight," Grorq said, trying to keep the admiration out of his voice as Bharuk examined his broken wristblade. The Skaarj assassin rumbled deep in his chest. 849 turned to face him again, her free hand pressed against her face in a pathetic attempt to staunch the bleeding.
"It is a flailing animal," Bharuk said derisively, even though his chest was heaving with exertion. The Terran's mark had been true; three bullet holes in his armor were beginning to seep blood. "Come with me. When we get close enough, grab it. I will kill it."
You are a Skaarj warrior-class assassin, why do I need to hold the Terran in place? Nevertheless, staff at the ready, Grorq moved hesitantly towards his target. Bharuk fell into step next to him, and together they advanced maliciously towards their soon-to-be-slaughtered guest.
849 choked and a spray of red escaped from between her teeth. For the first time since she could remember, she found herself actually backing away from an enemy. There was a lump of something in her throat and it tasted so unfamiliar that it took her a moment before she realized that she was…scared.
Scared of the possibility of death.
Scared of dying so close to deliverance.
I didn't know it was going to ambush me, she heard herself say, and her hands tightened desperately around her nearly empty pistol.
The Manta had been small but it had struck with violence and precision. It would have killed her if she hadn't had Myscha's knife.
The memory of the Manta made her angry. Very angry.
And the fear vanished.
Almost without knowing what her body was doing, she threw herself at the approaching duo of aliens. She was aiming for the Skaarj—take out the biggest threat first—but suddenly the mottled creature seized his Krall companion and threw him into her way, dancing back a few steps after he had done so. As their bodies met, 849 could see that the Krall was as surprised as she was.
I always knew Skaarj were cowards, she thought bitterly as her body connected with three hundred pounds of Krall muscle. They tumbled backwards into the pool of water. Grorq landed heavily on his back and immediately squealed with pain as the remaining Tarydium sludge from the Terran's discarded biorifle burned into his skin. The unprotected skin of the prisoner's legs sizzled quietly as she quickly positioned herself over Grorq's body.
"Miserable little—" Grorq began to bark, but his words were interrupted with a roar of agony as the Terran, with one swift motion, removed the knife from her thigh and jabbed the blade as deeply as she could into the side of his head. Her hand slipped, though, and missed piercing through his rather thin skull. The edge of the weapon became lodged in between the thick folds of his skin, and he heard her make a frustrated noise. He heaved her body off of his and she sailed through the air like a leaf, landing on her back on the other side of the pool with a mighty splash.
Grimly, Bharuk watched as the Krall lurched violently to his feet, his hands fumbling with the handle of the knife sticking at an angle out of his temple. Turning his beady eyes to his Skaarj overseer, Grorq could do little more than hiss and work his jaws reflexively.
You trash. You Skaarj incompetent. Use me as a shield, will you? He couldn't form words any more. He wanted to speak, but there was nothing in his head but pain.
849 gasped as the acidic water seeped into the wounds on her body, and she crawled stiffly out of the shallow pool as if she were extremely cold. She was aware of a quickly approaching form but she couldn't do much about it. She braced herself for the worst. If she made it through this next attack she would decide what to do.
The rain of blows never came. Instead, there was a gurgling rush of water on mossy ground and the sharp strike of armor against scales. She looked up in time to see the Krall she had just stabbed surge out of the pool and grab the Skaarj from behind. It locked its arms underneath the warrior's and laced its fingers behind its head hoisting it upwards so that its feet nearly left the floor. Clamping its wolflike teeth into its betrayer's shoulder, it began chewing through the Skaarj's scales.
Bharuk bellowed, lashing his tail against the floor. "You idiot! What do you think you're doing?" He tried to slash at Grorq with the Razik blades but the Krall was holding him in such a way that attacking would be impossible. He struggled all the more violently when he saw the Terran struggle to its feet, cocking its head at the situation taking place in front of it. "Let go of me! I am your commander! I'll kill you, zar'chi!"
Grorq could not longer understand the words, but when the Terran stood up and turned towards them, he knew that Bharuk's threats would soon be silenced. And so he clamped down harder, his teeth boring into the Skaarj's bones as the intruder, in a seemingly practiced move, took a few running steps towards the Skaarj and actually jumped onto Bharuk's body. One of her hands found purchase in the space behind his chest armor and the other wrapped firmly around the handle of the knife in Grorq's head. The Krall almost sighed in blessed relief as she pulled the blade out. Biting down harder on the flesh in his mouth, he listened to the satisfying sound of the Terran's knife splitting Bharuk's head open like a piece of overripe fruit. He let go, then, and watched as the Terran stepped out of the way of Bharuk's falling body.
Little, he thought dimly as he watched the Terran wiping the knife on the shredded remains of her pants. So little.
The two strangers stood there for a moment, the body of the fallen warrior still twitching in its death throes between them. Blood ran in little red rivulets off of the Krall's tongue and teeth. 849 cocked her head again, and, feeling something dripping down her jaw, put her hand back on her face.
"Ouch," she said.
Grorq brought his taloned hand up to the two inch-deep gash on his head. His body throbbed with acid burns. "Ouch," he repeated roughly.
Nudging the Skaarj with the toe of her boot to make sure it was dead, 849 swiped the lift keycard from its place on his back armor plate. As she bent down, wincing, to retrieve her Enforcer from where she had dropped it before her final attack, she felt a wave of something like nausea strike her. She bit it back.
Grorq watched her straighten and check the clip in her battered weapon. Now, he thought, would be the perfect time to get her. Swing with the staff while she's not looking. Quick and easy.
Almost as if she had read his mind, the Terran's arm swung around and pointed the pistol directly at his head. They stood there, their flesh still dripping with tainted water, eyes locked.
"I don't know why you did that, but I won't spare you," she said curtly, but her heart wasn't in her words. She didn't want to waste any more ammunition during this particular battle, and she wasn't sure that she'd be able to withstand another onslaught.
For the first time ever, she was considering not killing one of the scourges of Na Pali.
Save ammunition for Kira; she might need it.
Finally, she decided to walk over to the cell block control on the far wall and pull down on the rusted latch. The eight doors on both levels of the block swung open simultaneously, and a few dazed Nali stumbled out. When they saw Grorq, they retreated like shy birds back into the shadows of their cells.
"Touch them," 849 said dangerously, gesturing to her self-imposed charges, "and I will destroy you."
Grorq never considered himself as gutless as his Skaarj overseers, but the look on the Terran's bruised and swollen face was enough to wind a cold thread of apprehension down his spine, even if he couldn't understand the words.
He was bleeding badly. His skin felt like it was on fire. His head buzzed with indescribable pain.
Suddenly the Skaarj's orders to exterminate any and all opposition seemed… irrelevant.
Besides, this one had put up a damn good fight and had gotten rid of the biggest pain in the ass he had ever had the displeasure of working for. He looked down at Bharuk's corpse. Serves you right for scoffing at the Nali's prophecy, he thought. Looks like you killed the wrong 'pitiful egg layer'.
He only said one thing to her before he disappeared through the doorway that led towards the front of the Monastery, so as not to scare her into shooting him. It was the closest thing to a farewell in his language, and he felt that she deserved it.
"H'rakrah."
Keep fighting.
As soon as he disappeared the prisoner braced herself against the wall and swallowed heavily against the tightening in her gullet. Her body was rebelling against her wounds and there was something wrong with her throat. She had probably swallowed some of the sludge-filled water when she landed in the pool; her lungs burned painfully every time she took a breath. Don't puke, don't puke, don't puke, she pleaded silently. I can't lose anything now, I don't have enough.
Her words didn't work. Her stomach seized up and retched hollowly, bringing up greenish water and the half-digested bits of a root that 849 had eaten in desperation on her way down from Velora Pass. Clapping her hands over her mouth, she struggled to keep the remains of what she had eaten in her system, but the force of her nausea was too great. She vomited until she was only bringing up strings of saliva and was hunched on all fours on the ground, shivering like a leaf.
When it was over, she crawled away from the mess and waited for the pain in her vitals to subside. But it didn't. If anything, it was getting worse.
She frowned. This wasn't what usually happened. Usually she waited and whatever was hurting her went away. The bleeding would stop or the wound would close or the Manta would die and then everything would be over.
This felt…different. This felt bad.
"I'm not going to die," she croaked. "I can't die now. Kira's here. She's waiting."
She tried to get up. She couldn't.
She tried again. This time her arms gave out and she sank to the floor.
I'm not going to die. I will live.
For five long months she had made her way across Na Pali, fighting nearly every step of the way.
She could fight no more.
Ages afterwards, she breathed again.
She found herself on her back, staring up with one eye at a red clay ceiling and feeling like she was wrapped in papier-mâché. Her other eye was covered with strips of bandages that were wrapped around her head, covering the twin scars that were forming from her forehead to her chin. Looking down, she saw the reason her body felt so stiff: she was wrapped from head to toe with the snowy white strips of cloth. Her hands looked like marshmallows at the ends of her thin wrists.
But she was alive. She was also clean, which was a glorious feeling.
She turned her head. She was lying on a straw mat in the corner of a small but warm room. There was a fire burning in the grate on the wall opposite her; a heavy iron pot hung over the flames. Sitting at a small desk was a Nali priest. His wiry body was decorated with crimson and blue stripes of paint along his arms and head.
Myscha. Her lips formed the word but no sound came out. It was just as well. Myscha existed only in her past. Sometimes he came closer to her and she could see him in her peripheral vision, but he always vanished before she could turn her head all the way around.
The priest's arm was moving; he was writing. Sitting on a mat next to the desk was a second priest, dutifully sewing a piece of ragged cloth that 849 recognized as her pants. Lined up against the wall were her rifle, Enforcer, knife, boots, Universal Translator, and ammunition pouch.
Grunting a little with the effort, she managed to push herself into a sitting position. An old ache in her back twinged a little, but nothing had ruptured with her movements. Her eyebrows furrowed. How long have I been here?
The Nali had noticed her motions. The priest in the chair put down his pencil and stood, taking a bowl from the fireplace mantle. Lifting up the cover of the cauldron, he spooned some cream-colored liquid into the bowl and walked slowly towards her, kneeling down and offering it to her when he reached her bedside. The second priest stilled his hand and watched, needle poised, as 849 reached out and noticed that her clumsily bandaged hands couldn't possibly hold the bowl securely.
She looked at the bowl of what she took to be soup. Her stomach growled and the sound nearly echoed in the tiny room. The Nali priest said some gentle words to her that she didn't understand, bringing the bowl closer to her lips.
I look pitiful but it's better than starving, the prisoner thought as the Nali tipped the liquid into her mouth. It was more watery than soup and the taste reminded her of milk mixed with sweet potatoes. All too soon she had swallowed the last drop. The Nali sewing her pants ducked his head to hide a guilty smile when he saw the forlorn look on the Terran's face when the bowl was taken away from her.
849 quickly realized that getting up to serve herself was going to be impossible. The bandages around her body crippled her movement.
She pointed one of her 'blobs' towards the fireplace. "More?"
The first Nali shook his head, saying something else. She sighed and then pointed to her Translator. When it was placed in her hands, she used her nose to press the power button. The screen flickered and then went black again. She sighed, exasperated. The solar batteries must have been disrupted when she had thrown the machine at the Skaarj. She shook it, listening to the mechanics rattling around inside.
"Great," she muttered, giving it a half-hearted toss onto the mat and crossing her arms. "Now how am I going to understand Kira?"
Kira!
"Hey," she said, excitedly. The first Nali looked down at her expectantly. "Kira," she said, testing them to see if they recognized her name. "Do you know Kira?"
The two priests exchanged unreadable glances, but 849 wasn't giving up. She gestured to the pants in the second Nali's hands. "There's a paper in there. In the pocket. Can I look at those for a second?" After a moment, she held both arms out.
Instead, the Nali picked up a crumpled wad of parchment from his desk. He unfolded it and said something to her, holding the material dubiously out to her.
"Yes!" 849 clamped both of her bound hands against the paper. "Kira," she said, pointing. "I read something about Kira in here with this—" here she pointed to the Universal Translator, "—but I didn't finish reading it. Er, Terran!" Her face brightened and she gestured for the priest to approach her. "Tell me where the Terran is."
The priest picked up the paper and scanned the writing on the page. His brown face seemed to become more serious and he looked uncertainly at the prisoner.
"Where?" 849 asked breathlessly, tapping the paper and then pointing to herself. "I need to find the Terran girl that used to be a prisoner here."
The Nali in the corner ducked his head. His needle flashed in the firelight.
849 looked back and forth from one to the other. A line appeared between her eyebrows and before she could stop herself she had reached out and crushed her wrapped hands around the priest's wrist. He flinched but met her gaze.
"Tell me where she is."
The painted priest's eyes dropped. "Apra et."
849 jabbed the paper again. "Where?"
Gently extricating his arm from her grasp, he retrieved his pencil from the desk and, smoothing the paper out, began sketching something on the back. After a moment, he handed the paper back to the prisoner.
She looked at the drawing. Pretty good for a thirty-second draft. A rectangle rising from a rock in the water. The top was elegantly tapered to a point, supported by four pillars, and between the pillars was a bell.
In the distance, there was the mournful call of a clapper on cast metal.
The bell tower.
A relieved smile broke out on 849's face. "Thank goodness," she breathed, and beamed up at the Nali priest.
"Now can I have some more soup?" She put both hands on her stomach, the paper still clutched in her hands.
The first Nali refilled the bowl. Neither he nor his companion said a thing.
She couldn't ask them how long she had been there, but she figured she had recuperated for long enough. Two days after she first opened her eyes, she managed to tear off the bandages on her hands using her teeth while the two Nali priests who had saved her were out tending to their cattle in the small pasture beside the Monastery. When they returned to the small antechamber, 849 had already pulled on her pants and was mechanically lacing up her boots with trembling fingers. She had removed most of the bandages and even with the two angry red gashes marring the entire right side of her face, she smiled at them before she re-equipped herself and stepped out of their warm haven. They accepted her decision and gave her two pouches. One was filled with Nali fruit seeds, and the other held a roll of bandages and a smaller bag of herbal medicines. The second priest then presented her with a hand-stitched torso-length cloak that would cover her more than her Kevlar could and offer her a bit of warmth.
She was glad they didn't understand each other, or else she would have asked them to keep her. For a moment, she had been a human, and she had been safe. She had grown used to the pampering, but her survival instinct refused to let her settle down. She would lose her edge if she did.
To go down is to be human. To go down is to die.
And so she put her hands on the Nali's faces and kissed them goodbye, giving them the farewells that she was unable to give all those she couldn't save. They, in turn, wrapped their arms around her, and for a moment they all three of them were one. She breathed in the warm earthy scent of their skin, trying to burn the memory of their arms around her body into her consciousness.
She would never know their names, but just for that moment, they were hers.
The Monastery was empty save for the few Nali refugees that she had rescued. She saw that most of them were in the livestock pen, gathering straw for the cows and struggling with the rabbit hutch, but she slipped away before they could see her and stop her. The frigid air against her unbandaged skin woke up her senses and the Enforcer was a familiar weight at the end of her arm. The Nali had done a decent job with mending her pants but her being shirtless couldn't be helped. It was just as well. She didn't mind. And when she rounded the bluff and saw the marble bell tower jutting into the sky, she could have shouted with happiness. Clutching the keycard in her hand, she hurried down a path that wound down the side of the bluff until she was about fifteen feet above the water. She was so excited that she didn't bother waiting for the lift and instead leapt into the water, the shock of the icy liquid causing her to laugh as she broke the surface. "Kira!" she called as she kicked towards the sloping rock that the tower jutted from. "Can you hear me? You don't have to be afraid; I'm a friend!"
She pushed open the heavy door and dashed inside the bell tower. The chamber was dark and cold but 849 was too excited to care. Scrambling onto the platform in the middle of the room, she swiped the keycard down the lift's coding pad. The metal screeched under her feet and lurched a little, but finally began to rise.
She was filled with wan smiles and secrets. She didn't know what she'd say first. The Translator was broken anyway, but it wouldn't be so bad. Kira would surely recognize that the prisoner wasn't there to kill her. A small alarm chimed in the back of her consciousness, warning her to be careful around a stranger—but this stranger is human! She didn't want to listen to the negative voice any more. Besides, I am fully capable of protecting myself against a human. I've killed Skaarj. I've….
"Kira!" she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Are you up there?"
She didn't like what she had just thought. Against a human. It was almost as if she didn't consider herself the same species as the person she was about to meet.
"I'll be able to act like a human around her, anyway," she said loudly. "Kira! Hello?"
No answer—but the wind was picking up. It would be hard to hear anyone over such high-pitched whistling. She slipped the lift key into place and stepped onto the car. As the platform closed in on its destination at the top of the tower she shouted again, ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest when she failed to get a response. It's just the sensation of moving upwards, is all.
…But can't she hear the elevator moving?
The lift shuddered to a halt, directly underneath a massive silver bell that hung like a specter in the shadows of the belfry. 849, her hands clenched under her chin like a shy child's, looked expectantly around the shadowed space. And froze.
"Oh," she said on a dry sob.
Slumped against one of the crumbling pillars was the body of a young woman, her dirty saffron hair falling over her half-open eyes. 849 approached her as reverently as though she were walking towards an altar in a church, kneeling down next to the body and putting one of her hands out to tilt the woman's head up. Just before skin made contact with skin, the prisoner's fingers flinched, and she exhaled sharply against the absolutely debilitating disappointment that clamped her lungs shut.
"You were supposed to be alive," she managed to hiss past the stinging in her throat.
An emaciated shred of hope in her heart was holding out for a breath, the flicker of an eyelid, the twitch of a muscle in the woman's jaw. She could be sleeping. She didn't have a lift key and there were lots of stairs to climb to get here. Even when the prisoner's eyes fell to the dark stain on the front of the woman's flight suit, the voice of optimism still persisted. You were covered with blood, too. Try to wake her up.
Knowing it was hopeless, but listening to that urge in her heart to try and prove her common sense wrong, 849 placed a hesitant hand on Kira's shoulder and shook gently. The Russian woman's head wagged back and forth, but she made no other movement. 849 shook her again, harder this time. Her heartbeat jumped a little when she realized there would be no sudden flood of life in the Nali's supposed warrior princess. Her touch would not bring Kira back.
Something like anger took over her body and she cursed, slamming the Enforcer down onto the floor; the metal clattered and spun off into the shadows.
"Fuck," she said brokenly.
There were two blood-smeared objects in Kira's lap. 849, wiping both on a clean scrap of Kira's flight suit, found that one was a translator and the other was the remains of a small journal. She read the translator message—at the words "hopefully the Skaarj won't find me here", 849 gave a small snort of disgust— and then turned her attention to the journal. The leather covering was still intact but every bit of paper on the inside had been ripped to shreds. Whatever secrets it had carried, it was keeping. Kira had made sure of that. 849 sighed and tossed it over the edge of the platform. Maybe it was for the best.
She leaned back and sat down in front of her dead companion; crossing her legs and putting her elbows on her knees, she laced her fingers together and rested her chin on top of her hands. There was a thick line of anger between her brows as she knit them together, trying to keep her breathing even. She dropped her head and looked down at her own body.
"You had everything going for you-," she said, "-and you died. You were handed the keys to freedom and you allowed yourself to be slaughtered. You holed yourself up in a fucking bell tower and were killed because you don't have any fucking common sense!"
Her head jerked up. "Do you have any idea how many Nali sacrificed their lives for you?! You were supposed to be their warrior princess and now you're dead! Who's going to pick up the pieces, now that you've dropped them everywhere?" She struggled to her feet, fists clenched. "Why can't any of you assholes give me a break?" She leaned over the bell tower railing, shouting to the monastery below. "Am I too late to save every single God forsaken son of a bitch on this rock?!"
The force of her voice hurtled down towards the stone structure; it took her a moment to realize that no one had heard her. Her plague had passed through the monastery. Every threat to her life had been extinguished by her hand.
Her hands fisted around the railing as her pounding heart slowed down. She knew it was unwise to expend energy on being angry. It was wiser to express her emotions in battle— it was usually how she came out on top when warring with creatures twice her size.
Her knees folded underneath her and she collapsed next to Kira, watching her breath puff out in clouds. After a moment her upper body folded over like a flower, and she ended up hugging Kira's stiff shoulders, her cheek buried in the hollow of the Russian woman's neck.
"I'm sorry." she breathed.
It was cold enough outside that Kira's body had begun to mummify in the freezing elements, but 849 closed her eyes and imagined that she was drawing warmth from the corpse. It was certainly better than entertaining thoughts of taking the woman's warm-looking flight suit.
"I didn't want to know your story, but I'll let you come with me, if you want." She was growing sleepy. "You'll have lots of company. I've made lots of acquaintances that you can talk to. There's Myscha, who saved me. And there's Ash, who didn't save me, but then he made up for it. There's a couple people that I don't know, but their faces come up every once in a while." Her eyelids fluttered. "I think that's them, sitting by that other pillar. They won't stay for long. They never do."
You are wasting time. The voice of reason was back. You are not sleepy; you are experiencing the effects of hypothermia. Leave immediately.
The prisoner sat up, obeying. Her mouth worked and she spat a mouthful of blood onto the marble floor. Looking at Kira, she pinched the woman's unseeing eyes shut and pressed a kiss to her icy forehead. "Ms. Argmanov, you are an idiot, and I am finished mourning for you."
She didn't bother searching the body for supplies; she could tell from a single glance that Kira didn't have so much as a fruit seed on her person. It took some time, but finally 849 was able to collect enough of her waning strength so she could drape the stiffened corpse over her shoulders and position herself on the edge of the platform. With a sudden surge of her body, she sent Kira vaulting over the railing and tumbling like a leaf towards the lake. Her body hit the water with the sound like a slap across the face. Facedown, she bobbed near the surface for a moment before the weight of the glacial lake began pulling her under.
849 watched quietly as Kira sank softly into oblivion, the golden ripples of her hair still visible and waving like wheat long after her body was lost to the gloom.
When the deed was done, she looked down at her hands. They felt strangely empty. Suddenly panicked, she stumbled onto her hands and knees, feeling around on the cold marble for her discarded Enforcer. Her fingers brushed against its muzzle and she breathed a shaky sigh of relief, scooping up the gun and clutching it to her chest, bending her head over it protectively.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She crooned, cradling the weapon and rising to her feet. "I won't do that ever again. Don't leave me. Don't fail me. I'm sorry."
She realized now that she was truly alone.
All right, Na Pali, she thought, inhaling deeply and turning towards the shipping cart that swung in the insistent mountain winds. I'll be your warrior princess. I'll be that messiah you so desperately want. Apparently you won't accept anyone else.
Activating the shipping car controls, she stepped onto it unsteadily, jerking a little when the car started moving away from the Bell Tower.
Just live, the voice coaxed sweetly. Live. Just for a little longer. Just a little bit more.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" 849 said loudly, irritably. "It seems like Hell won't take me just yet."
The slow, terrifying smile that curved her mouth failed to reach her eyes as she rested the heel of her palm against the handle of her Enforcer.
The shipping car carried her through a mine shaft opening in the side of the mountain. Without a second glance to the scene she had just left behind, Prisoner 849 disappeared into the shadows and was gone from the Bluff Eversmoking Monastery. She left no evidence of her passing through, save for the Skaarj and Krall bodies bleeding out in the hallowed hallways. The Nali that had been released from their prison cells wasted no time in dumping the bodies into the sewer system within the plateau.
The story of the Messiah's conquest at Bluff Eversmoking spread like wildfire through the Nali civilization. During the following weeks the Skaarj went into a near-panic, sending nearly half of their forces fleeing back to the Mothership to regroup and consult with their completely enraged Queen. Security was doubled in the last remaining Skaarj strongholds on the continent. Nali were oppressed more than ever, but now a renewed song of hope was in their hearts.
Even though the Messiah vanished from the light of day after the encounter at the Bluff, the Nali knew that it was only a matter of time. The Skaarj reign on Na Pali was unsteady. All it needed was the slightest push and it would crumble. So they waited. Patiently, they waited.
And 849 did not resurface for a very long time.