Chapter 21
Hoss had carried her through the understructure due to her being the only one who couldn’t see in the dark. The helmet light needed to be conserved. To Ember, out there was just blackness, apart from where reflections or cracks above allowed in some light. Somehow, he found the data knife from her description of where she might’ve been when it’d fallen out. He wiped it clean and placed it in her hand.
“Hope this thing is waterproof.”
She’d bet he was grinning. Probably thought it funny where the Xatar had shoved it, now he’d had time to mull it over. She stuck the knife in a zip pocket in the skirt. Once she had some time to work on this, she’d make sure it was charged enough to use on Baz.
The fight area was a graveyard.
As they approached where shafts of dwindling sunlight played on the mounds of whatever had fallen here over the last centuries, bright red birds exploded into flight.
Now there were dead Xatar to add to the layers of sediment. Dots of scarlet against the black, the pale sky, and if she squinted and looked up...the delicate debris drifting. Rain here seemed more the feathers falling off the birds, or stuff flaking and cracking off the buildings or the trees. How much real rain ever hit the ground? Most of it must cascade and pour across the floors, drip from story to story, washing through the history of this long-ago, doomed metropolis.
She hugged herself.
They would get out of here eventually. Just some walking to do. Nothing more.
The bodies were well marked by the clusters of birds and the other animals crawling, stalking, and slithering – looking for a free meal. Something with a multitude of stilted legs stomped off in the distance further along this ravine between the buildings. More than man-height, but...it had left at their approach. Which was good. Wasn’t it?
Maybe it ate flowers?
Or licked up spilled old blood from corpses.
Why had none of them thought to download a beastopedia from the starwebz before haring off into the forests of Omm?
Note: Next time I’m about to be kidnapped, pack essentials first.
The force of the fall had been great enough to tear apart some of the bodies – armor and all. Baz had contributed to that also by pulling off heads. Yet she’d survived, somehow, with him holding her and bouncing down. Inconceivable. Did it matter how he’d managed it? Only in that it surely proved he was damn resilient and strong, and the cybermonks had done a great deal of work on his body.
More than could be accomplished in a day.
The scent of death was already strong. Ember held her nose at first then gave up. Every piece of equipment they came across was salvaged, if not too bulky or heavy. Two functioning arc rifles, the sledge gun, the batteries from most of the helmets, one extra pistol...and this humanoid before her.
She stared into the eyes of a live Xatar.
The rustling noises had drawn her, and the trail of thick blood. He’d pulled off his helmet. She’d found that and a handgun, removed the battery from the helmet then followed the drag marks to this overhang of building. Vines draped over the front, concealing him.
He stared up at her, clearly having trouble breathing. Parading across his forehead was a row of black Xs – an indented scar or tattoo. The meaning of those Xs was unknown to her. He’d not live much longer down here. Maybe if they adopted him, did some med work, he’d survive. The problem was he’d slow them down incredibly. They might never make it out at all. He might betray them. If left alive by himself, he might somehow communicate with those above. She couldn’t know for sure.
The last of those possibilities was improbable but possible.
She raised the handgun, stroked the trigger guard on it.
His husky voice barely reached her. “I will see the paradise in the stars when I die. You...you will eat dirt forever, you lower creature. Dirt...you are dirt.” He spat some blood on her boots.
Well that was nice to know. Guess he had a death wish.
She muttered farewell, I’m truly sorry and aimed, planning to shoot him straight through the middle of his forehead. Before she could, a blue streak blurted past and into him. He jerked back and slumped, sliding down the small hump of composted leaves and dirt he’d been leaning on.
Ember twisted and saw Hoss behind her with a pistol in his hand.
“I would’ve.”
He cocked his head and shrugged, patted her shoulder. “These things can live in your head forever.”
She could do what needed doing. She adapted. Killing the Xatar would’ve given her no joy, but allowing herself, Hoss, and Baz a greater chance of survival, that would give her a certain satisfaction.
Sliding the handgun into the holster she’d slung over her shoulder, she scanned her surrounds. If there was anything or anyone else left to find, they weren’t visible. Baz strolled over. He’d found a set of armor that fit, though his upper body was bare. The huge bulk of his hunched shoulders would make fitting anything there difficult.
“Time to leave?” she asked, managing not to stare at him or drool, much. His musculature shone and rolled as he walked. Like watching a monolith come to life...one that could fuck her.
Hoss looked as if he struggled not to smile, as if he knew her dirty thoughts. He was probably making a good guess. The orc knew her far too well.
He surveyed the area also. “Yes. When do you want to check Baz over?”
Not here. There was too much death, too many scavengers. If a Xatar ship somehow figured out where the warriors had died, a warship might arrive overhead any second.
“I’ll do it after we put some distance between this place and us. Safer.”
“Okay.”
The face of the warrior Hoss had shot was fading fast. She tucked that away in the trash basket of her memory. Move on.
“How long to get out of this forest, do you think?” She fell into place between him and Baz. “Do you know which way to go?”
“I do know that. From our last bearings, I think one or two days to exit the forest.”
“Good.” It was indeed good, calming even, to have a goal. Nice to have someone who had a great sense of direction too. Some days, mostly after visiting clubs the night before, she’d get lost finding the bathroom.
Out of this first, then onward.
A few hours later, in another, larger clearing where they’d have warning if something charged out at them, she had Baz sit on a plinth that was all that was left of a toppled statue. Whatever the statue had been, it was in pieces and buried under mulch. Only a six-fingered, blackened stone hand emerged from the dirt, pointing a forefinger at the sky, as if accusing it of some fickleness.
The data knife was soundless though bright once she set it to full power. The violet twist disappeared as she touched Baz in the center of his spine and pushed it into him. She took readings from several areas – spine, arms, midsection, brain then sat back with her eyes closed, sorting through the data.
“This is, a big mess.”
Baz grunted, sounding sad.
“Sorry, Baz.” She smiled up at him, put out her hand and let him slide his fingers into hers. Something about a big, warm man touching her like this did gooey things to her insides. “I will figure this out. I just have to work carefully. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She really didn’t. As a beast-cyborg he actually was more approachable than the grump on board ship. She sincerely liked him more. Sex or no sex.
From then on, whenever they stopped to rest or eat she asked him if she could work on his cybersystems, and he sat for her. There were layers and layers, and the monks had created links that seemed nonsensical. If A happened X, Y and K version 1.113 and 6.555 would happen, triggering a thousand subroutines. She could unpick it, adjust the worst side effects. Speech was her priority; it seemed linked to a rise in the chemicals and neuro-routines interconnected to anger.
They’d definitely enhanced all his muscles but not made it a part of his system until the day they added the sxsynthcock. They’d made his nerves spin off messages faster than a hexakraken swallowed that starship that breached its territory on Forbidden Planet 909.Yup, that fast.
They’d made him almost superhuman, but like most things it had penalties. Unless she toned it down, he’d wear out and die early. This was resetting his aging. Maybe really rapidly. It gave her mild headaches, insomnia. It made her prone to muttering at odd times when something occurred to her to fix the next time she sat with him, but she was getting there.
“Halted the aging,” she told him on day two. He wouldn’t be quite as fast but still.
He nodded and grabbed her shoulder, squeezed her there in thanks.
Speech...why couldn’t he talk?
A day later, they emerged from the fringes of the forest, from beneath the smaller trees growing there, and found open plains. Her heart lifted.
She ran forward, giggling with happiness then twirled on the spot with her arms flung out. The gloom beneath the dead city had become heavy, depressing. A rise lay before her, and she jogged up to it and stopped, waiting for the men to catch up.
Here was a plain studded with few trees, a wide expanse of grasses swaying in the breeze, sunlight, full-on, face-warming sunlight. To the left, a herd of brown creatures roamed – too far away to tell what they were. Herbivores, probably. She took a deep breath.
Soft hills poked bluntly at the horizon.
“We can get to those in a few days,” Hoss ventured, waving toward the hills.
“Great.” Ember took another breath then another. Clean air. No feathers, no grit dropping on your head, none of that incessant drip, drip, dripping.
Hoss took her hand on one side and Baz took the other and suddenly she knew what this was. It was an adventure she’d never have known except for extraordinary circumstances.
She never touched people...men...like she had been doing. People stayed away from her. She stayed away from them. She moved her fingers and felt them adjust their grip. Hoss squeezed hers, toyed with her fingertips. It wasn’t just the sex that buoyed her, it was the excitement of touch, that was an intimacy on another level entirely.
More intimate than sex. Like kissing only more...something. Gentle.
And freedom. She had that too. She could screw these guys here and now, and no one would criticize her. Of course some ugly predator might swoop in and eat them while they fucked, but that was an unlikely result and one she’d wear. Freedom, at least until they reached Verd. After that, things would have to be normal again. They just had to contact the Leaf, or another friendly ship, or CESS.
This freedom now though, this new intimacy, she was high on it.
“Ember,” Hoss began, his thumb drawing circles on her palm. “You’ve still not read the DSU?”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head.
“That has to be why the monks made you a bit lust crazy and made Baz as he is. They hoped it’d distract us so they could get the DSU.”
“You think?” she said dryly. “Maybe they just wanted to make some orc-human-cyborg porn?”
He chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think so. Those dudes were into predicting future events. We need to know what is on that DSU.”
She pressed her lips together. “Not yet. And even if I did read it, I couldn’t tell anyone else.”
“Think about it.”
She would.
“In the meantime, remember this. Getting to Verd is not guaranteed. It’s a long way, and we have a big chunk of hostile land to negotiate. Things we don’t know about could kill us. Be prepared to shoot, or run and hide, or both. This will not be easy.”
He hefted the sledge gun he’d resurrected from a pile of some sort of animal manure, stroked the trigger with his forefinger. He’d dropped it from a great height but it’d landed soft. Three rounds left. If the blast didn’t kill, the smell might.
“Gotcha. While I’m fixing Baz, I think you two can show me how to shoot straighter.”
“Deal. Teach you to shoot, Baz to talk, and more sex.”
What? She glanced at him in time to catch the grin. Hoss had been patient, as had Baz. She’d been walking gingerly at times due to them both fucking her. More sex sounded...tempting. Thinking about it made her chest tight, made her breathe a little faster. Last time had been overwhelming but she wanted more...just her body kept reminding her with an ouch now and then.
Sex was...good. So good when it’d been them both. She wanted to cross her legs, put her hand down there and press. She mentally smacked her hand.
They recommenced walking for those faraway hills, fingers on triggers, and their minds in the gutter, or so she figured.
Tonight when they stopped might get to be fun. She found she’d placed her tongue on her upper lip, thinking about what was coming. She’d never volunteer for it, it just seemed too perverted to ask for a threesome, but if they dragged her into their nest, and it always seemed like a nest when she thought about it, she’d go, she’d fall swooning into their arms, onto their massive dicks...
Gods.
While making unintelligible noises of distress and arousal in the back of her mind, she nearly ran into a small thorny shrub. Stop daydreaming. Then Ig popped into sight, all pretty in his red-and-black scales. She could’ve sworn Hoss frowned in Ig’s direction.
The little trinket he’d brought her made her forget to ask Hoss what he’d seen.
Oh dear.
She recognized this. A severed finger. Not just any finger. The guard at the library doors had worn this intricate tattoo on both hands. Ig had been to Verd, and Verd was likely not doing well.
Ig seemed rather pleased and chose to perch on her shoulder and comb her hair with his claws. She’d seen Old-Earth monkeys do this to remove lice. She really hoped she had none of those, but then again, whatever had fallen onto her head from above in the city had crawled away a few times.
Disgusting.
What would they do if Verd was rubble?
Whatever they had to. Yes.
She dropped the finger, hoping the men hadn’t noticed the grisly object appearing on her palm.
A small storm was blueing the sky with clouds. The wind picked up, fluttering her dress about her legs. Rain would make it harder to see those nasty critters Hoss said might be waiting. If she could’ve just convinced Ig to transport them all across the multidimensional space to Verd, or to the Leaf, things would be better.
And sexless.
Fuck.
She might just choose the sex, given a chance to pick between fast rescue and walking back. And that was just so very weird.
Ember checked the handgun was loose enough in the holster to draw quickly. Of all the creatures here, including Ig, she was the most vulnerable. She thought about that and about how both Hoss and Baz would no doubt leap to her aid. It was heartwarming to know that they’d do it, not because they were paid to do so but because she was someone they valued as a friend and a lover.
Friends. Lovers. Both were concepts she’d had trouble with in the past. She sneaked a look to the left at Hoss and the right at Baz then put her hand up to feel Ig’s small clawed foot.
Walking back was perfect.