Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) (50 page)

Few people seemed to realize that a shield could be as much of a weapon as a defensive instrument. Branwen’s flying axe followed a shallow and brutal arc that ended with one mercenary’s face, embedding fatally deep into the open area in the front of his helm. The second had barely turned to register the killing of his friend before Branwen’s shield-rush slammed into him, pressing him hard against the rough stone and momentarily pinning his arms. The eye slit of her shield was already lined up with his throat, and the mercenary’s eyes went permanently wide and glossy as Branwen thrust her Skyblade through that narrow opening and took his life, the plasma-edged blade sinking effortlessly through the padding between armor plates and flesh alike.

Then she stepped back, jerking her blade free and allowing him the freedom to collapse limply to the ground, life rushing from his body. A long stride to his companion ensured that his sleep was no less eternal, as Branwen sunk plasma-edged alloy into his skull from above, then twisted and allowed him to spasm his last. It was all over within a couple of seconds; Branwen slung some of the blood from her blade and beckoned to Zimi, whose silhouette hovered near the entryway like a timid specter. As much as she might have liked to, she had no time to treat the girl with kid gloves.

As Zimi stepped forward, however, she eyed Branwen’s handiwork splayed across the cold ground and retched, one hand shooting out to steady herself against the wall and the other rising to cover her mouth. “Ugh… I’m sorry, Cap’n— I’m just not used to seein’ people… It’s not even th’ bodies, so much as watching… how you did it, an’ all.” Another unsteady retching sound came from behind her hand and facewrap.

“I truly wish there was another way.” Branwen started to reach for her friend with apologetic concern, but stopped when she noticed her hands were covered in blood: inherent symbolism if ever she’d seen any. “I am sorry, Zimi.”

The girl just shook her head unsteadily at Branwen for a moment before straightening resolutely, one hand still protectively over the lower part of her youthful face. “I’ll be fine, Cap’n. What do ya need?” She moved over, carefully picking her way past one of the corpses to Branwen’s side.

“We need in. These two,” Branwen restrained from gesturing unnecessarily at the two fresh corpses, as Zimi was steadfastly attempting to keep her gaze diverted from them. “They spoke of 286 being held deeper within. But this door is beyond my meager means, I fear.” She hadn’t really examined the heavy impediment yet, but she had no doubt her claim would be true. And indeed, a few moments of examination proved her correct; the sleek metal door was flush with the wall, and only a keypad and pressure-sensitive dial offered any entry.

“I got it, Cap’n. Just a sec.” Branwen was glad to hear the confidence in the girl’s subdued, cloth-muffled voice.

17.5
- Zimi

Zimi sighed, but she sighed quietly, internally. She didn’t want the Captain to have any reason to doubt her abilities, any reason to fear failure because of her.

She wasn’t up to the task, not really; but with everyone depending on her, she wasn’t about to let them all down, either. No matter what.

“Cap’n, if ya want, you can make this a whole lot easier on me.” Zimi looked up at the imposing metal door, nothing short of a sealed vault to her eyes. Solid, metal, impervious and impassive. It didn’t care about her struggles, her intentions; it didn’t think she could do it any harm. No doubt much like the man that bought and installed it to keep his “property” intact until he could pass it along to who knows where, or whom. The very thought made Zimi’s blood boil; it took a lot to get her riled up, but some things made it easy.

But that was okay. If anyone could fix this mess, she was sure the Captain could. And Zimi knew she’d do whatever it took to make it work.

“Of course. What can I do?” The sense of urgency was there in Branwen’s voice, though restrained and combined with a rock-solid confidence and air of authority. The larger woman moved close as quietly as she seemed able, blazing blade still at the ready. Zimi did what she could to not pay the violent tool any direct attention; as a symbol, what it represented stood capable of bringing her composure down around her ears, so to speak. Not the weapon’s fault, of course, but it was easier in the heat of the moment to ascribe darker traits to it than to do so to her friend.

“Your sword’s got that high-grade plasma sheathing on it, right? Well, I think we’re gonna see how good it is, ‘kay?” She kept her voice down, too, quiet and subdued and barely there; not really worth noticing. It wasn’t hard.

Branwen nodded and set the edge of her ready and crackling sabre against the wall where Zimi indicated. “Like this?” The older warrior kept glancing back at the tunnel to their backs as if she expected someone to come up behind them at any time. Whereas Zimi could appreciate the vigilance, it only served to make her more nervous at the moment, feeling like they might be “caught in the act” at any moment. She blinked, chastised herself lightly, and strove to shrug the feeling off.

Zimi tried to smile back at the Captain, though she realized too late the expression was hidden by her makeshift air filter covering the lower portion of her face. Maybe it was for the best; she wasn’t sure the attempt had come off correctly. “Yeah. Now, if you’ll start applyin’ pressure right there - no, a little to the left, Cap’n - we’ll just see if that sword don’t help make short work of his fancy defenses…”

Zimi trailed off as the Captain went to work; it seemed that her masterwork of a weapon was well up to the task. And for the best, really. No matter what Branwen seemed to think of her abilities, there was no way she could have breached such an obstacle on her own. She figured a lot of the Captain’s seeming misconceptions were due to just how little the woman really knew about the cluster’s technology, even just the simple things like what Zimi had grown up with.

I mean, I ain’t no master thief, or nothin.’
Zimi thought to herself as the Captain cut a line into the wall between the bulkhead and the blocking vault door, where Zimi knew just enough to realize that most of the power and hydraulic controls must be housed.
I never broke into any banks, never stole nothin’ that somebody didn’t steal from somebody else first. An’ despite what it might seem like to th’ Captain, I can’t just go an break down any ol’ high level security, or disappear into the shadows. I just know how to stay out of the way, is all, how to hide an’ be somethin’ people don’t notice, that ain’t worth their time or trouble.

Not quite a solid minute of work saw a plate fall free of the wall, inches-thick metal still glowing hotly around the edges from Branwen’s impromptu plasma cutting. It thunked solidly against the floor, but there was nothing to be done about it but hope the sound didn’t draw any attention, since there was nothing they could do to catch the nearly-molten edged metal chunk anyway. The Captain nodded in satisfaction regardless of her lack of knowledge of the reasons behind the work, then stepped back to watch behind them with more solid focus once Zimi nodded to her to indicate that she was done, heedless of another hidden, half-smile on Zimi’s part. Then Zimi went to work on the revealed, vulnerable innards of the security door barring their way.

An’ where I might not be able to crack a safe or bust down some vault or such, there’s often plenty of ways around stuff that rich people, fancy people, all those people from high tech worlds don’t ever think about. Cracks in places they don’t think to look, even when it’s their job to think of it. Little places, out of the way places… Simple places. Turns out everything’s got some sort of weakness, got some kinda work-around. If’n ya can get to it, that is; ain’t always easy to manage it.
But
Zimi supposed, if there was anything she was good at other than plants and a little doctorin’ here and there, it was exactly that kind of thing.
Findin’ those cracks, that is.

17.6
- Branwen

Zimi seemed to be mumbling to herself quietly as she worked. Branwen, turning away once more to act as a proper sentry, didn’t see any harm in it; she knew when someone was trying to distract themselves, and figured the more Zimi could distance herself from the reminders of violence all around her, the quicker she could get them both through that door, and the easier she might cope after it was all over with. Or so Branwen could hope. In the meantime, her own job was to stay alert and kill anyone that interfered.

The moments ticked by, the actual action of gaining entry taking a handful of minutes, as Zimi used a set of tools secreted away on her person to slowly sabotage strange arrays of wires, tubes, and thick metal piping; meanwhile, tiny eternities crawled by as Branwen stood watch, facing away from the door and with weapons bared, shield interposed between her crew woman and the entryway. Finally, Zimi moved from working on the hole in the wall Branwen had so recently created to finessing the door itself, though Branwen’s attention was too focused elsewhere to keep a close watch on the particulars of her actions, no matter how interesting they might have been.

Unlike how it seemed to Branwen’s perceptions, it wasn’t long past that when Zimi triumphantly, albeit quietly, announced that the door was open. Branwen gave her a grin of appreciation, and provided cover for her as the door hissed and cracked open, pushing itself aside with a hint of some sort of hidden, if potentially damaged, hydraulics. The rumblings of sound from the lower area had subsided somewhat while they worked, but another strong vibration suddenly rattled the complex and Zimi tensed, stepping through the narrow opening of the partially-open door and looking around. Branwen knew it must be rather dim inside when the medic tugged her light-adjusting goggles down off of her head and over her eyes, but there was still plenty of dim light for the Captain’s more adaptive vision to make out their surroundings.

She paused, eyebrows arching skyward, more than a little impressed at what she saw. They now stood in a good thirty-by-fifty foot chamber, almost all of it lined with either weapons or the blank, obvious spaces where weapons once were. There were a lot of those; spaces now bare that looked to only recently have housed guns, ammunition, body armor, and shields of both the handheld glasteel and energy-projection-based varieties. There were even several crates of flat blocks with black and yellow bands around them that she assumed to be packages of explosives. Above their heads, a dull orange light flashed rhythmically, and at the far end of the room, yet another door barred their way, as sturdy and seemingly unassailable as the last.

With nothing more than an indicatory nod from the Captain, Zimi was off, rushing across the chamber to examine the far door. Branwen paused for a moment, perusing the armaments on display, and wishing she had more time to examine some of them, like the large, two-handed maul that stood near her, inexplicable technological advancements obvious on its business end. On her way to the other side of the room, she paused to pocket a couple of extra shielding emitters: solid, octagonal devices with metal plating and some sort of gel-like “lens” in the center on one side.

Branwen didn’t have the first clue what “quantum electron screening” was, but she now knew firsthand that it worked, otherwise, she likely would have died to gunfire shortly after coming to Merlo’s rescue a few minutes ago. Either way, she figured these particular shielding devices were much better quality than what she was currently equipped with, and she felt that she could do far worse than helping a few of them find their way into the hands of her crew. Certainly much better than the use they were being put to here, defending the lives of sell-swords and slavers.

She pulled off her own shielding device from where it was fastened onto her sword belt and clipped one of the new ones on in its place, flipping it into active mode as she did so. Unlike the last one, this emitter had a vague “hum” of energy that was barely perceptible, yet subtly annoying. However, she found it was no more distracting than wearing plate armor for protection, and certainly a whole lot more comfortable.

At Zimi’s beckoning, Branwen once again acted the part of salvage technician, using her one-of-a-kind war blade to saw a section free of the reinforced wall. But as soon as the task was done, she paced over to the door, propping her stolen shield up against the wall and readying her axe and sword; if nothing else, she could give Zimi some room to work while she stood watch. At least Branwen hadn't been forced to leave any corpses scattered about this room that would have bothered the poor girl. Concealed to the side of the entryway, she settled herself into a ready stance to wait, though she didn’t have to wait very long. Seemingly emboldened or encouraged by her success with bypassing the previous security, Zimi cracked the sanctity of this door even faster than the last one. She called her success out to Branwen in a soft voice that barely carried across the intervening distance, and Branwen was just about to call out her own congratulations in return when a prickle along her spine stilled her tongue.

It was that warrior’s instinct; the well-honed feeling that she could never explain but that nonetheless had kept her alive and relatively intact as a veteran combatant, that intuitive knowledge of her surroundings that had saved her from many an ambush. After such a day as this, Branwen didn’t think once not to trust it. As something, someone, moved furtively outside the door she guarded, Branwen rushed out to meet them, stepping right into their path with her blade close to her torso, ready to press deep into the intruder’s body.

A startled voice cried out, “Whoa!” and Branwen managed to pull up just short of testing how good her pilot’s sophisticated nanotech armor was, turning her blade to the side and almost stumbling gracelessly into Merlo with their combined momentum. “I surrender, Captain,” the girl said with a light, tight smile, looking far better than she had a few minutes ago. As Branwen regained her balance and stepped back, she saw that the suit once again covered the majority of Merlo’s body, and though one arm still hung mostly limp, suit clinging tightly to it in thickening ribbons, she seemed much less pale and more alert than before.