Watching the humans thronging busily beneath her, Lex crept along the ledge, knowing that only her yautja camouflage kept her from being seen and shot down. She had noticed the group of men in combat gear join the crowd below, and it was clear they had brought some very serious weapons. She assumed they must have arrived on the second helicopter, the one she had seen land about half an hour after the first one.
"They're not going to be content to wait around until I give myself up, soon they'll be climbing up after me," She thought, and smiled to herself.
She was edging her way painstakingly along the side of the cliff, moving away from the humans - slowly but steadily. Down on the ground, she could see the soldiers – for such she assumed them to be - preparing to ascend the cliff face as she had done, except they had proper gear.
"Easy for them!" She thought, and at that moment a little bit of the thin ledge she was inching herself along crumbled, sending a shower of fine scree down onto the trees below. Lex froze as the debris spattered down onto the needle covered floor and waited with her heart in her mouth. To her relief, everyone seemed to be too busy with their preparations for the climb to notice. She pressed herself harder into the cliff wall and began again, edging along inch by inch, testing each portion of the ledge with her foot before she put weight on it.
As she rounded an outcrop of rock and the humans were lost from view, she was relieved to see the ledge broadened out slightly wider and she was able to quicken her pace, putting distance between herself and her pursuers much faster.
Descending the cliff was much easier than climbing up it. She had a long, coiled rope in her pack and she criss-crossed it expertly around her body to form a makeshift harness. For an amateur this would be extremely dangerous, leaving them at risk of overbalancing and toppling backwards onto the rocks below, but for Lex it was second nature. She had learned classical abseil techniques as a teenager, accompanying her father on his climbs.
The sun was starting to sink towards the horizon as she lowered herself easily down the jagged wall, finally touching down softly on the ground beneath, her feet making gentle depressions in the snow.
Looking around to make sure she was alone she reappeared, using the wristcom to orient herself. The cliff she had climbed was not far away and the dogs and their handlers were still there, "I have to be careful to stay upwind of those dogs as much as possible, but I also need to do something to disguise my tracks."
She unwrapped Hobbes's scarf from around her face, feeling the biting cold sting her lips, and tore the fabric in half. Then she tied each half in a bundle around her boots, making rough overshoes. "That should disguise my boot prints a little…" She squinted at the wristcom display. She wasn't far away from the clearing where she knew the two copters had landed, "I need to take out the choppers if I can, so they can't use them to follow me."
She reached into her pack and drew out her mask, feeling a change coming over her. Spyrro's running away, the sudden pursuit, everything had happened so fast it had thrown her off balance, but now she'd had time to collect her thoughts.
Lex smiled, remembering another night like this: a night when she had been hunted by her own kind. That had been long ago, in a much warmer place. Back then, she had been vulnerable; desperate and pregnant, lacking armour or weapons or even - she recalled - any shoes.
Back then, she had still been fully human. Slipping back her hood she pushed the visor onto her face and became… something else. The part of her that had first been brought to life, deep in a hive of serpents underneath a frozen desert, was waking up. It had grown stronger since then, feeding on the blood of countless enemies. Countless prey. Now, in the dark, it stretched hungrily and sharpened its claws.
"I am Sain'Ja." She thought calmly, "I have walked in places they can never know, stalking prey they cannot imagine. I have no need to fear any human."
She reactivated her camouflage and began to move, circling back towards the copters. Her feet made no noise as she crept through the still, snowy woods. Fat flakes beginning to fall again now that night was drawing in. Approaching the wide clearing, she saw they had left one man - another special forces type in black fatigues - on guard.
Kneeling down quickly, she felt under the snow for a few moments until she found a stone the right size. She waited until his head turned away from her and then hurled it into the scrub away to her left. His head snapped round at the disturbance and he moved off in the direction of the noise to check it out, as she had expected. As he searched the undergrowth, she silently approached the copters, taking care to tread only in the tracks left by others. It wasn't difficult, the landing site was a confusion of heavy boot prints.
Knowing she didn't have much time, she pulled out three silver spheres from her pack, pressed the timer button once, twice, three times to trigger the delay function. Carefully, she slipped the spheres down by the copters landing skids where they would not be obvious.
Then, she slipped between the trees, letting the trampled snow mask her trail, and began to run.
Scar turned towards the voice. The Rough Skull who had addressed him was standing blocking the doorway of the brig, armed but unmasked.
Now that he had a chance to look properly and had taken off his void helmet, he realised what he had been too distracted to notice before... what had made the yautja here seem strange to him.
"She is female!" He thought in surprise, then he looked down at the two jailers, "They all are! This must be one of the clan's female ships. That is why I do not know it."
The warrior facing him was as tall as he was and clearly an adult, but he could tell she had only recently become so. Perhaps she was the same age he had been when he faced the chiva. Her weapons and the way she carried herself proclaimed her status as Sain'Ja {Trans: a warrior}, but she was still as slender as a rapier, having not yet put on the greater muscle mass of a fully adult female. He also noted, with some satisfaction, the bright green tracks of small claws down her face: surely Spyrro's handiwork.
He knew he could not risk taking his attention off her to pull out the dart case. Seeing her eyes flicker to the control desk, he moved around to block her way, knowing that otherwise she would raise the alarm and bring the whole ship down on his position.
The female surveyed him coolly, "I am Sek'Met." She said, "You must be S'Kia; The renegade; the flayer of Bad Bloods; the butcher of Hirai -"
Silently, Scar cursed, realising Spyrro must have told them his name. His notoriety must account for all the rest, as his daughter did not know enough about his past to have told them.
"You can call me the Abomination!" He snarled, "If you must list my epithets, do not omit the one I like best!"
"Then, Abomination, you must know that the Vortex is a female ship and therefore forbidden to males without our permission." She raised her scaly brows at him, "As a male and an outlaw, your intrusion here means your death."
Lowering Spyrro to the floor and pushing her behind him so she was shielded, Scar unsheathed his dah'kte with a shriek of metal, "I do not need an adolescent such as you to teach me about clan law," He growled, "I came here for my offspring and I am taking her back. Enforce your penalty, if you can!"
Immediately she was enraged by the slur on her abilities, extending her blades with an answering ring, "A male has no rights over a female child, she belongs with us! I am here to take her before our leadership!"
"Then you have had a wasted journey." Scar tensed, ready to spring.
"Come, Abomination!" She hissed, "I shall show you what happens to those foolish enough to trespass here!"
Then he leapt and she leapt too, their two sets of knives clashing noisily as they struck and parried. She danced around him, evading his heavier blows, striking and retreating as she looked for an opening in his defence.
"She lacks the weight and the strength to engage me head on, but she is no easy target!" He thought, and at that moment she dodged out of his reach and came up behind him, slicing towards his neck. He managed to deflect it, warding off a further barrage of slashing cuts before she sprang away again.
Scar threw himself into the offensive, hammering her with the blades and forcing her to spend her time blocking him so that he was able to drive her backwards. Suddenly she slipped aside again and rebounded back at him from another direction, launching herself off the doorframe and bringing her blades curving towards his throat in a beautifully executed arc.
Scar grinned as he swung round to face her. She was fast, but she still fought in the overly finessed style of the gymnasium, whereas he had been fighting for his life in dark, isolated places for a long time. He knew finesse and grace came a poor second to cunning, ruthlessness and, sometimes, dirty tricks. As she leapt, he dodged under her guard and drove his elbow hard into her unprotected stomach. She doubled up and he backhanded her across the jaw, striking her with the flat of his blades, so that she staggered.
Pressing his advantage, he slammed into her with his shoulder, this time knocking her across the room and mashing her up against the wall - hearing her gasp as he drove the air out of her lungs. She tried to swing at him again but now he had her crushed between himself and the wall as she hissed at him windedly through jaws spread wide. He managed to get a grip on both her wrists so she couldn't use the blades, using his greater weight and strength to pin her so she couldn't pull free... and then wondered what to do next. He didn't want to kill her - not one so young as this, and a female - but he had to neutralise her somehow.
Then, he felt her writhe against him.
"What did you really come here for, S'Kia?" She said in a low purr.
It took him a few seconds for him to understand what she was saying, "She cannot think… that I want to fuck her?" Seeing her expression, it began to steal over him that was exactly what she thought. He had decisively beaten her in single combat but he had not killed her. For yautja, this was as close to a courtship ritual as they ever got. Not only this but, at her age, he was very likely the only adult male she had ever met.
"Of course she desires me," He thought, "After all, she is not blind!"
But, meeting her bright, yellow stare, he could think only of a pair of hypnotic, black eyes gazing up at him, misty with desire. The disparity between the picture in his mind and the reality in front of him was so jarring, it made his head swim. Suddenly he felt a stab of longing, so powerful it was like a physical pain.
He drew back from her in horror, holding her away from him, "There is nothing I want from you," He snarled "Except my daughter!" And he did the only thing he could think of: he headbutted her, two quick, savage jabs to the forehead. Her eyes rolled upwards and she dropped at his feet, out cold.
Ostrowski's team had just begun their ascent of the cliff face, when the silence was shattered by a deafening boom that shook the forest. Snow spattered down off branches all around them and many of the waiting police were knocked to the ground as the dogs howled in terror. Ostrowski looked up to see a bright orange fireball rising above the trees into the darkening sky. He stared for a few beats in total bewilderment. Then his black brows crinkled together as he realised what must have happened and he pushed himself to his feet, cursing furiously.
Behind him, several of the climbers had lost their footing, falling the ten or so feet to the ground, where they lay groaning. He ran towards the fire but had to stop as he felt, even from here, a heat that threatened to singe his eyebrows.
"That's both the copters gone, Sir," Carravino said, coming up behind him "She must have had explosives!"
"I just want to know how she fuck she managed to get close enough! Winston was meant to be guarding my copters! What the fuck was he doing?"
"Well, he ain't doing much of anything anymore." Carravino said brutally, surveying the burning clearing as the fire raged. Behind them several of the local force were radioing frantically for a firefighting team.
"Sir," Carrivino frowned, "I think we have to look at the possibility that either the hostile is here, helping her, or maybe she's using their stealth tech."
"Stealth tech or no, we need to get after her!"
"It's been snowing for the last half hour Sir, her tracks will be almost gone - "
"Don't give me excuses!" Ostrowski barked "Just bring her in! Put together a team from those of our guys who are able to go – whoever isn't injured - and get after her! Those dogs will pick up her scent again!"
She was already halfway down the hill when she heard the explosion and paused to look back. Even at this distance she saw the flare of orange blossoming amongst the trees in the snowy twilight and felt the tremor shake the ground. The explosion echoed off the mountainside and caused birds to shriek and chatter all around her, as they were disturbed from their night-time roosts.
She didn't waste time staring, but began to run again through snow that was getting deeper by the moment. It was almost knee high in places now, but she pushed on with gritted teeth.
"I can get to the road," She told herself, "Then, I will take a vehicle and get myself away from here!"
Dogs were barking in the forest behind her again, but the snow was getting deeper and it was getting harder to run. She also suspected that if the snowfall got much heavier, it might start to interfere with her camouflage.
"I can't run forever," She realised "Sooner or later, I have to stand and fight."
Endless avenues of trees and their shadows surrounded her on all sides, pillars of black and white ice.
She stopped running, "I suppose this is as good a place as any for them to die."
Happy Saturday! Obvs if you're reading and enjoying, please follow, favourite and review.
LovyDovy7: Sorry if it seems short, but glad you liked it. Scar is a bit of a sucker where Spyrro is concerned.