Nova (54 page)

Each Karukai whirled, rolled, dove, and flipped to and fro
to evade Serros’s shots. Avara’s movements, a result of innate immediate
reaction coupled with the application of a brilliant, strategic mind, flowed
from one to the other like water from spout to tankard.

And yet, the two Varda moved as she. Caught in the center–storm
of battle, as any outstanding solider knew, it was only a matter of time before
one of the three combatants miscalculated.

There!

Serros knocked off three shots where she knew “Birch” was
about to land from a crouching spin and…

Yes
!

The first two shots hit the Varda in the upper thigh, the
third in her heart. With a cry, she tumbled to the ground and under the railing
to fall over the side of the walkway. A second later, a heavy thud of impact
preceded the
kish–kish–splash
of a shattered tree of clone tanks.

Captain Serros didn’t have time to revel in her victory, however,
for while expertly dodging Avara’s fire, the remaining Karukai Varda was coming
in fast, headlong, with her own blazing pistol. Avara felt like the two were
locked into some twisted, slow–motion game of chicken where the slightest
mistake would be met with the finality of death.

Midstride, the Karukai she’d begun to think of as “Oak”
dodged a quintet of fire from Avara’s Stingers even as Oak returned the favor.
To escape, Avara literally leaped up and over a stream of chasing bullets from
the Varda’s pistol. Finally, the two met a hair apart, and the battle switched
from ranged to furious melee, with each woman raining blows and dodges upon and
before the other at a speed so rapid and evenly matched, that even Arca
enhanced vision could not follow or distinguish.

Deliberately dropping her Stingers to the ground as needless
encumbrance, Avara launched no fewer than eight blows in less than a single
spent heartbeat to Oak’s chin, left shoulder, left shin, and abdomen. Yet each
strike was cleverly deflected or riposted. As they fought, Serros could see the
Karukai’s vicious grin, could
feel
the enjoyment she was experiencing in
their physical combat like a real, tangible cloak cast over her shoulders.

Damn Synergy Enhancement!

Then inspiration struck. Serros decided to use what was for
a
Human
, an unexpected talent. As they traded blows, Avara purposely
sent a spear of triumph radiating out from her mind, a sense of overwhelming
relief directed at something, or, as far as the Karukai was concerned,
someone
,
behind and to Oak’s left.

Serros could see the startlement flit across the Karukai’s
proud features. Just after the emotion was issued, almost against her will, Oak
turned her gaze slightly over one shoulder. Opponent momentarily deceived, Avara’s
fist struck with all the power an Arca Savant with a Physical Potency and
Vitality Enhancement could muster. Her only faintly opposed strike clove
through armor, synth–skin, cloth, and porcelain flesh alike, leaving nothing
but a gaping hole behind. The Karukai’s rose–toned eyes locked onto Avara’s sharp
gaze in utter disbelief, even as her right hand reflexively felt for the wound.

A whimper of terror and denial loosed from her throat like
cat plunging down a well. Her weakening fingers did little to stop her life’s
blood from gushing out of the fist–sized puncture that began at her breast and
continued through the outside of her back.

Without cognizant thought, Avara grasped the falling Karukai
woman’s shoulders and eased her to the ground. Doing her best to ignore the
sight of the Varda’s still reflexively pulsing heart and torn flesh lying on
the ground immediately next to them, Avara kept her eyes married to the dying
Karukai’s. Moment heavy with significance, Avara gave what she could to the
enemy whose life she’d just taken.

In flawlessly pronounced K’avenas, Captain Serros announced
quietly “You fought well Varda; rest now from all battle.”

As if trying to say something in return, the Karukai grunted
once, blood pouring out of her mouth, before the final trickle of life fled
those claret–hued eyes.

Scanning for further enemies and spying none, though noting
that the few scientists and techs who’d been present had understandably fled,
Avara knew she had to hurry. She
knew
that time was running out.

Pulling herself to her feet, Serros retrieved her weapons
and then with an easy leap, moved to the lowest level once more to begin the
process of manually setting each of the warehouse’s six power cores to
overload.

CHAPTER 28

Wiping twin beads of sweat from her brow, Avara found
herself both swearing and entreating at the same time as she tried to finish
the power overload initiation of the clone production warehouse’s fourth power
core. “Come
on
, you bloody beauty, turn!”

“Captain Serros, this is Lieutenant Z’arr, please respond.”

Avara practically bit her tongue clean through, so startled
was she at hearing K’llan’s voice. Tamping down the feeling of euphoria that
immediately coursed through her at knowing the Vosaia was still alive and well,
Avara refocused on her task.

Putting her center into the action but careful not to employ
so much strength that she broke the damn thing, Avara pushed down on the
currently protruding manual release lever. “I’m here, K’llan. Good to hear your
voice.” Avara grated out as she heaved.

“You too, Avara.” The relief that Avara felt was clearly
echoed in K’llan’s tone, and Serros worked to concentrate on the task at hand.

Fortunately, focus wasn’t so difficult to manage since there
was precisely T–Minus five minutes before the whole clone–tank production
center blew.

“Status report?’ Avara asked as she pushed once more.

“I have managed to free the prisoners and they are grouped
outside, holding point by the Karukai starfighters with some liberated weapons.”

Creeeeeeiiiick.

The manual release sounded like a bloody bull being sent to
slaughter, but it worked.

Got it! Now all I have to do is thumb the ignition
switches, and….
“Ha!” Avara whooped. Then, as the full meaning of Lieutenant
Z’arr’s words hit her, half–barked, “What do you mean
they
are holding
point? Where are you?”

“Making my way to your position, of course. I should be
there momentarily.” K’llan responded, tone vibrating with entirely too much
equanimity.

“K’llan! I ordered you to escape with the prisoners. This
place is gonna blow in less than five minutes and I have two more power cores
to rig. Get out
now
!” Serros snapped as she stood up, then Arca sped to
the next power core and for the fifth time in the last seven minutes, began the
sequence to overload the inflow conduit.

“Yes, but the order was rendered entirely unnecessary.
Ca’rrakk Commed a few minutes ago.”

“
What
?”

Avara heard the sudden thud of what seemed to be a body
slamming down hard to the ground, followed by several cascades of bullet fire,
then K’llan picked up where she had left off. “I was able to catch the
communication because I was on the surface. He is about twenty–minutes from
making the Outpost and
Excalibur
is still in orbit.”

Having snapped out the retractable manual release lever and
once more carefully exerting her strength to change the core’s flow, Avara gasped
out, “That’s fantastic, K’llan! Still doesn’t explain why you’re coming here when
I ordered you not to.”

“Your logic was predicated upon the basis that ‘
one of us
’
had to live to get word out. Ca’rrakk shall now serve that purpose.” Again, Serros
found K’llan’s tone to be infuriatingly and imperturbably sure.

“K’llan, I command you…” Serros began.

“Do not, Avara.” K’llan coolly interrupted, her soprano like
liquid steel. “You will not send me away to protect my person in the name of
duty. Nothing, not even the threat of a court martial, will keep me from
ensuring your safety,
Nyeria
, or from being at your side if the worst is
to come.
Nothing
.”

As she successfully finished moving the stubborn lever into
place and keyed the command code, Avara realized there was indeed nothing she
could say. No more than any words of K’llan’s would keep Avara from the
Vosaia’s side if she was in danger, even in the face of death.

Sighing heavily, Avara stood up and just before she began to
move to the sixth and final power core, she ungraciously muttered, “Very well,
K’llan. Move, then. Now there’s less than four and half minutes to…”

With no warning whatsoever, dark–blue washed into black as
Avara felt a massive wave of force tear into her with armor–shattering potency.
Before thought could fully register, her entire body hurtled through space,
vision nothing more than a dizzy swirl of tinsel–like light.

Smash
…
smash
…,
smash
,
smash
,
smash
…
smash
…
smash
…

Skidding across the grated texture of too–cold durexium
flooring, entangled by limbs and soaked with a liquid she couldn’t identify,
Avara vaguely realized she was lying on her left side, shoulder screaming, and
with something heavy pressed atop her body.

Attempting to clear her blurry vision, Serros grasped with a
start that the
something
was the smooth, jelly–covered nude body of a
Karukai clone. The clone was feebly trying to answer the call from brain to
body to wake up and reply to the distress it was in.

With lances of burning pain shooting through her like she
was a participant in some esoteric fire ritual that involved lying on hot–burning
coals, Avara weakly pushed the clone’s soft body off.

The motion caused the clone to fall forward and spasmodically
flop like a dying fish caught and left on the sun–heated deck of a fisherman’s schooner.

Heavy eyes attempted to open for the first time even as the
gray skinned woman reflexively struggled to remove the cords that were dangling
from her body, ripped from their purpose and thus, having left behind tracks of
torn flesh. The shock must have been too much for the woman as she began to shudder.

Her eyes opened once, meeting Avara’s, and an aching sound
issued from behind the breathing mask that lay half–sundered from her face
before she spasmodically jerked a final time and went still, the tank fluid
still flowing down and around them both.

Wanting nothing more than to cry and lie still from pain and
the sight she’d just witnessed, Avara forced herself to move. As she pushed
herself half up, she recognized only then that her entire body was faintly
glowing with the remnants of a K–Shield, night–blue light leaking from her
flesh like smoky cob–webs.

Must have activated the Shield by reflex.

Looking around, she saw the destroyed remnants of over half
a dozen clone tanks, utterly devastated, as if a missile had been released
along their path, spilling fluid and clones alike. Fighting a wave of almost
overwhelming, pain induced nausea, Avara somewhat belated deduced that
she
was the projectile that had smashed through the tanks.

The thought scoured across her mind with aching clarity that
without a doubt, the K–Shield had saved her life.

Struggling, Avara knew her body wasn’t in much better shape
than the ruined tanks. She could see that her armor had been all but entirely
blasted off straight through to her skin–suit, and that dozens of glass shards still
remained embedded in sundered durexium and flesh alike.

Shakily reaching around to where the back of her skull and
neck met, she identified a two inch long, leaf–shaped sliver. Avara brutally pulled
out the glass knife that had lodged itself in the lower right portion of her
skull. She could feel blood immediately begin to soak her dark hair and pool
down her neck with the removal. With precise care, Avara extracted several more
glass shards that still jealously took refuge within her skin.

As for the rest of her, Captain Serros could feel that she’d
been bruised all over and would lay odds that the fire she felt coursing
through her left side translated to a dislocated shoulder and a fractured hip.

Moving as quickly as she could, Avara retrieved her Adrenix
Hypo and injected a double dose. Almost crying out in relief, immediately the
blur–reducing pain began to subside and the labored cadence of her breathing
slowed to a more normal flow.

Despite the agony and her brain’s sluggish cooperation that
threatened to drown her in blackness, though she could see no one, Avara
knew
she wasn’t alone, that only a K–Blast could have hurtled her some forty–plus feet
through tank after tank like a child’s toy being tossed in a tantrum.

“Most impressive, Human.” A voice announced a moment later,
cool as the chill of first autumn. Avara noted with surprise that the voice
spoke in her own native, Old–Terran English, though without the Welsh
overtones.

Turning towards the source of that voice, Avara was rewarded
with a brutal smash in the side of her face by a dark–heeled boot. The impact tore
a cry of pain from her throat as she forced herself to half–roll and half–scramble
away from her attacker.

She could feel the hot spray of blood that dripped from her
nose, could see the stuff form little islands out of glass bits littering the
floor as the liquid pooled on the once–white durexium surface.

With an effort that felt superhuman, Serros made it to her
knees to face her attacker head–on.

“Of course, I am not
entirely
surprised, given the
rather astonishing turn of events you and your Vosaia have engendered.”

The blurry smudge resolved itself into the form of a tall, sleekly
muscled Karukai woman wearing only a black synth–skin suit, her Varda chevron
emblazed on her chest for all the world to see.