He glared at her. “I don’t care,” he said. “We don’t leave people behind.”
She didn’t know what we he was referring to. Grace was sure that Kohl would have left them behind in a hopeless situation. El would have set the drives to burn hard for a distant system and be sipping Mai Tais under the haze of a different sun. Hope might have stayed, but she was young, and stupid, and too full of her namesake to survive out here on the edge of space. It was some other we, a group of people who weren’t here anymore. They sure as shit hadn’t stayed to help him, because otherwise he wouldn’t even be here.
There was a clank and the rotary laser fell free. Nate hissed as he burned his hand on the weapon, then tried to lift Kohl. He groaned, then dropped the man in a clanking pile. “Too heavy,” he said. “Damn this gravity.”
Okay, so he won't leave Kohl. “Move,” she said, sword out.
“What are you going to do?” he said, not moving.
Her sword licked out, and Nate flinched, but her strike wasn’t at him. The blade touched Kohl’s body here and here and here, and his armor popped open in a hiss of broken seals. His slumped form was revealed, the fruit inside a harsh rind revealed. “Now,” said Grace. “We have to go.”
As if in agreement there was a rising hiss from the Ezeroc. Nate looked at her. “Yeah, you got it.” He shouldered Kohl, still wincing, and started a heavy-footed run. Grace followed, the insects crawling along behind them, behind Penn. Hungry. Watchful. Like they were herding them, rather than hunting them.
Herding. Now there’s an unpleasant thought. Why would the insects be doing that?
She almost ran into Nate, he stopped so fast. Grace looked ahead, her eyes tracking the empty street. She saw the broken-down barricade of the spaceport, then the smoking remains of their dropship, barely recognizable as a machine, fire licking out from the shattered hull, pieces of engine and control systems and ablative shielding strewn about in a 50 meter radius.
“Well, shit,” she said. “The fucking bugs destroyed our dropship.”
“Penn,” said Nate, wheezing under the load of Kohl. “We need another ride. Where on this planet can we get one?”
“Nowhere,” said Penn, his face and his voice lost. For once, his shoulders weren’t so perfect square. And not coincidentally, Grace was not pleased to be here to see that.
“There’s got to be something,” said Nate.
“There’s nothing,” said Penn.
Nate dropped Kohl to the ground, pulling out his blaster. “Then we fight,” he said.
“Nate,” said Grace. “There’s so many of them.”
He gave her a little lopsided smile. “That’s when you’ve got to burn the brightest, Grace,” he said. “When the darkness comes down to snatch you away.” He looked at the blaster in his hand, trust/distrust/like/anger/betrayal/trust coming off him. “If it comes to it, I won’t let them take you.”
“Cover me,” said Penn. He jogged back the way they came. Towards Kohl’s fallen rotary laser. He hefted it, making it look like hard work. “Captain,” he said to Nate, “if they try to take me, you shoot me down. Do you understand?”
“You know,” said Nate, “I was going to shoot you down for the hell of it.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” said Penn. They backed towards each other. Three souls, around Kohl’s slumped body. Three against a thousand, against ten thousand. Grace had been running for so long, it felt good to stop. To know this was the end. She flicked gore and slime from her blade.
The Ezeroc drew closer. The air was turning orange from the burning of so many rocks in the atmosphere, and Grace felt like it was getting hotter. It could have just been her imagination. It didn’t matter, because death would take her soon enough, by fire or by claw it didn’t matter.
One of the bugs rushed at her, and she let her sword do the talking. The blade rang hard against chitin, not biting deep, and Grace felt — well, fucking surprised. This sword had been with her for as long as she was tall enough to hold it. She knew this blade, and it knew her. It always cut. It was ever sharp. The Ezeroc hissed at her — fucker’s probably surprised too — then made to lunge. She swung again, and this time the sword bit.
Bit, and stuck.
Then with a sound of metal crying, the blade broke. Grace stumbled back, the hilt of her sword and a mere foot of blade left in her hand. She looked at it, then at the Ezeroc, and prepared to die.
There was a flash, and another, and plasma bit into the creature. Chunks exploded off it and it burst into flame, driven back. By Nate. By his blaster. He should have just left me to die. He knows it. I know it. And still.
Which we did he mean?
Penn was firing the rotary laser, straining under the weight of the weapon. Straining, until the weapon clicked down, its battery spent, and with it, the last of their hope. Grace looked down at her broken sword, then past that to Kohl on the ground. Then to Kohl’s belt, with his pouch of toys.
You got another one of those?
Maybe.
She dropped to her knees, ripping open Kohl’s pouch. Three syringes tumbled free into her hand. She pulled the caps off them, held them up in a fist, and said, “Sorry, Kohl.” Then she slammed them into his body, ramming the plungers home.
One heartbeat, two. And then Kohl was on his feet, eyes wide, cords in his neck straining, a silent scream opening his mouth into a rictus. He looked around, took in the situation, then picked up a piece of concrete connected to rebar. He hefted it. An Ezeroc came forward, and Kohl roared, swinging the makeshift club in an arc. It smashed the Ezeroc’s head to a pulp, and Kohl kept swinging until there was nothing left but slime and chunks.
He looked back at Nate, then Penn, and Grace, like he didn’t know them.
The Ezeroc hissed. Kohl back up and crazy was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. They would die, but slower. Grace knew it.
Grace.
Now we can be together.
That’s when the insects came for them. All of them, at once.
The sky broke open with a thunder, the sound the rage of gods, a flash of fire and light. Grace fell to her knees, shielding her helmeted head with her hands. She looked up through her fingers, saw an eagle’s fury bright in the sky, fusion fire burning in a wide braking arc as the Tyche screamed its defiance above them. PDC cannons were out from the hull, their rage and fury roaring at the Ezeroc. The ship had blasted over them, and the pilot — it must have been El — already turning it around as fusion drives turned buildings into pyres. The Tyche pulled back to hover over them, rotating in a slow circle as the PDCs cleared the Ezeroc away, weapons designed for space warfare hammering the street and buildings to powder with a noise and violence that shook the air from Grace’s lungs even through the suit. The Tyche was dropping tungsten like burning, metal rain.
The ship lowered, air buffeting Grace’s helmet. She blinked against the glare of the landing lights, her visor’s automatic adjustment snapping between black and white as it fought against the visual cacophony. Their ship had come for them. The Tyche would not let them die in darkness and fear.