“Viker! Bale! Cato!” Gabriel shouted, “Someone, respond!”
Silence.
Gabriel felt a surge of anger in his chest. They had been tricked; he wanted to shout and rage at the observer for its duplicity in splitting them up and still expecting them to help restore the columns. And for what? It wasn’t even clear why the observer needed them restored.
As logic began to encroach on his anger, Gabriel acknowledged that, whatever the truth of the matter, the observer couldn’t – or wouldn’t – respond until the blocks were restored to their appropriate sockets. Once they were, he could demand answers.
Gabriel looked around the chamber and found that he was in a makeshift armoury. Racks of armour and weapons lined the walls as well as jump-packs, spare gravity belts, and all manner of other military-grade equipment, most of it non-standard.
More interestingly, the chamber was dominated by a 3-D fabrication module that towered over everything else. 3-D fabricators were very difficult to design or build from scratch, and those capable of manufacturing weapons were illegal. For all their insanity and barbaric experimentation, Gabriel couldn’t help but be impressed by this enemy’s resourcefulness, even if that ‘resourcefulness’ had come from knowledge imparted by the Swarm.
There was also a large, semi-automated workbench with a half-assembled submachine gun and its components lying discarded on top. Stacked to one side were a pair of black oblong blocks, the very items for which he was searching. Gabriel stowed his weapon and picked up the two blocks, one in each hand.
His motion tracker flashed red.
Without thinking, Gabriel dropped the blocks and drew his weapon again as he spun around to face the threat, just in time to squeeze off a few rounds. The target’s shielding rippled and flashed as it slapped aside the few bullets that he managed to fire; then she extended a hand in a ‘stop’ gesture, causing a circular pattern on her palm to light up.
Gabriel felt an invisible force grab him and hoist him into the air, yanking his limbs out into an X shape. He was helpless. His shielding was still active, but the force holding him in mid-air felt far more intense than the gravitic tunnel, like being restrained by a dozen invisible hands. He still had his gun, but it felt far too heavy to move.
Gabriel had seen this kind of technology before, but it was often too large for a single user to carry. That the Faithful had managed to shrink the technology down to the size of a glove was genuinely impressive. Not that being impressed helped him much.
His captor was a lithe female figure in a jet black suit of combat armour with a bulbous black helmet and a featureless visor. She looked like the mysterious figure who had opened up the door to the labs for them earlier; the one the squad had decided to designate as the ‘black widow’ – it might even be the same person.
She curled her fingers, and Gabriel felt the gravitic force pull him in until he was face-to-face with his captor. Holding him in place directly above her with one hand, she slid her free hand across the side of her helmet, causing the visor to retract and reveal her face.
Her face was Human, devoid of androgenising cybernetics or other modifications. Her skin had a living hue without the corpselike complexion of the monsters in the Faithful’s ranks. Her eyes were icy blue and her hair was raven black. She was disarmingly attractive, a strange observation to make about a lethal foe. Black widow was the right designation.
“Why are you trying to restore the Temple?” the black widow asked.
“It’s not a temple.” Gabriel pointed out dryly, talking through his helmet speakers.
The black widow smiled – or was it a snarl?
“The only way of knowing about the totems and the keys is through enlightenment by the Voice,” the black widow looked at him with an icy stare, “But you haven’t been enlightened, so why are you attempting to restore the Swarm’s prison?”
“I like puzzle games.” Gabriel answered sarcastically.
The black widow used her gravity glove to pull Gabriel in even closer until they were almost close enough to kiss. Those piercing blue eyes seemed to stare straight through his visor and into his own, and part of him couldn't help but stare back.
Gabriel felt a strange ripple of emotion run through his chest.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t answer.” The black widow said in a gentle tone.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Gabriel replied.
The black widow thrust her hand back out again, and the action threw Gabriel violently upwards. He hit the ceiling with such force that it triggered his shielding, and the resulting repulsion sent him into an awkward spin on the way back down. The black widow’s control over him was broken, and in mid-fall he hit the activation button on his gravity belt.
The chamber was actually oriented sideways relative to the moon, and so the moon’s gravity caused him to dramatically change direction in mid-fall by 90 degrees, causing him to land on what was technically the wall.
Gabriel landed on his back and opened fire, but the black widow had resealed her helmet and her shields easily swatted his bullets aside. How could a figure that thin have shields that powerful? Thanks to his belt, Gabriel was safe from her gravity glove, but he would need a different weapon to kill her.
But the black widow didn’t give him time to re-arm. She swerved and danced as he continued shooting, as if pure agility were enough to defy his bullets. As she bolted back and forth with preternatural speed, she drew a tactical baton from behind her waist, flicking a switch which caused the tip to glow electric blue.
Defying the chamber’s topsy-turvy gravity, the black widow then used the gravity glove on her free hand to boost herself off the floor and land on the ceiling opposite Gabriel, then propel herself back down again in order to land on top of him.
Gabriel switched to concussive shots and fired at his airborne opponent, but his shots barely slowed her descent as she extended the glowing tip of the baton towards him like a lance. Gabriel slid to one side to avoid her as she fell, but was too slow to avoid the baton.
The tip brushed Gabriel’s foot, sending a bolt of electricity surging through his armour. The energy-absorbent layers redirected the power surge across the suit’s systems and sent some of it arcing out from his limbs, but it was enough to temporarily short out the exoskeletal motors in his suit. Had it made contact with his flesh, he would have been fried to a crisp.
Gabriel crumpled to the ground in mid-dive as his suit motors were briefly paralysed. System alarms flashed in his helmet HUD, warning him that his exoskeletal motors were non-responsive, like he couldn’t already tell from the fact that his armour felt ten times heavier.
Before he could get up, the black widow pounced on top of him and planted her boot on his chest. Standing over him like a dominatrix, she flipped the baton around in her hand and flicked another switch. This time, a long spike emerged from the opposite end of the baton, and she raised it with both hands like a stake, ready to deliver the killing blow.
Gabriel swung his left fist, the clenching motion causing his remaining three combat claws to extend. He caught the death spike in between the curved claws as it descended towards his neck, and twisted it out of its wielder’s grip, sending it clattering across the floor – or the wall. Then he knocked the black widow’s leg out from underneath her.
With the agility of a gymnast, the black widow turned her sideways fall into a backward somersault, but by the time she was back on her feet, the regenerative systems in Gabriel’s suit had kicked in, restoring his exoskeleton to functionality. Gabriel pushed himself off the ground, returning to his feet, and drew the alien sword from his back, activating its energy field.
The black widow extended her palm towards her baton and used her gravity glove to pull it back towards her. A clever trick, but by the time the baton was back in her hand, Gabriel had already closed the distance and brought the sword to bear, severing her arm at the elbow before bringing the blade back around and striking her neck.