Stars will fall from dark skies
As ancient rocks are turning
Quiet fills the room
And your love flows through me
Though I lie here so still
I burn for you
--The Police, I Burn For You
Wake up to his fur, warm against my skin.
He is so beautiful; more beautiful asleep. I touch the side of his face-- gently-- I don't want to wake him.
"Not asleep," he murmurs, and kisses my fingers, and I feel just the edge of his tongue brushing my fingertips. I shudder a little at the feeling, the pleasure...
"We shouldn't," he says softly, but he reaches out, stretches his arms around me. I stroke the fur on the side of his neck, and he shakes his head at me, smiling.
"I know," I tell him. The battle is just hours away... we should save our strength.
But this might be our last chance...
He's figured out how to wake me without getting himself threatened or hurt. Little touches; soft, comforting, just enough to rouse me.
Sometimes I am lucky, and I wake earlier, to the sound of his morning prayers. He is reluctant to pray in front of me...
I don't think there is a better sound to wake to than his voice.
Clever and brave and beautiful... and mine, in some way I don't understand, because of some strange grace I don't deserve.
And today we do battle.
I had hoped that I would never fight a battle again...
I should have known better.
We position ourselves at the ravine; Leo and I near the top as lookouts. The force is just what we'd expected; Meih's intelligence proved solid.
Two light groups of guards-- about five each-- with the slaves stretched out between them. Should be easy.
Should be.
They look like something out of a movie set in medieval times-- the clank of the chains, the ragged clothes-- but the ragged clothing is too recent, and a good half of the slaves are no longer recognizable as human...
Are no longer human, for that matter. If they ever were.
We wait for Meih's signal; this is her game, she calls the shots. Last time we weren't in charge of something all hell broke loose... things had better go better this time.
That was back when I had to fight my better instincts to pick up a gun.
Before I had one attached to my hand.
I take another look up and down the ravine, turn on my heat sensors... no one coming.
This might just go as planned.
And then I hear something...
a rustling...
trees and branches snapping...
Shit.
What the hell--?
I turn up my hearing, and hear the rushing beneath the other sounds.
Water.
Moving fast.
The ravine, a dry riverbed...
A dam.
There was a dam.
Oh shit.
I rush over to Leo. "Water."
He looks at me like I'm crazy. "What?"
"The dam's gone. We're about to get flooded..."
His lips move. "How..."
"Trust me."
He calculates for a second. "Are we high enough?"
"I don't know."
"Can you find out?"
"Not in time."
"We need to get high," he says. "Fast. And the slaves... how much time do we have?"
I notice Meih glaring over at us; this isn't part of the plan. "Ten minutes, maybe."
He frowns deeply. "What can you do?"
"I might be able to buy us some time."
"Do it."
"Right..."
The ravine itself is fairly narrow; if I use a blast of air strong enough, it can keep the water back and evaporating for a while... until I pass out, most likely.
I can hear the battle beginning behind me...
Before I found that house out by the colony, I'd been... the last town I'd been in had more or less driven me out. They'd thought I'd brought them bad luck. Maybe I had.
The cyborg skeleton has self-preservation as its primary directive; it's why it found me in the first place. It refuses to assist in its own destruction.
I tried other methods; they failed as well. If I'd had someone else nearby, another body it could have taken... but I couldn't do that to anyone.
So I lived, hating it. Hating every moment, on the bad days.
And now... when I want to live, am desperate to live... it's failing me.
It will fail me, one time or another. For good.
But there are almost a hundred slaves in that ravine. With their own reasons to live.
Maybe someone else's Sal is there...
I position myself in the ravine, high enough to escape notice of the remaining slavers.
If I boost my sight, I can just make out the edge of the water.
It'll be less than a minute now...
I let my left arm become a laser cannon. With luck, I can force back and evaporate most of the water...
Behind me, a woman's screaming, something I can't make out. I wonder briefly who it is.
And then the sky behind me lights up...
I turn, and Meih is on fire.
She's standing in the center of the ravine, energy radiatating from her body in waves...
And I realize she's about to try the same thing I've been planning to do...
Holy shit.
The water begins to rush in, and I feel the energy blast through me.
It's not just water: it's trees, debris, a bicycle, something that might have once been a car... the energy catches it, holds it back, and I turn my attention to the people, now screaming in shock and fear.
I push through the energy field, back to the slaves. The slavers who are still alive have disappeared; no doubt they chose to lose their investments and save their lives. One complication out of the way, at least.
They're leading the slaves-- still chained together-- up the side of the ravine.
No time to separate them all, but it's a dangerous plan; if we're not careful, a slip or fall could doom everyone.
I catch up to them, reach out to the slave closest to the top, starting moving people up and over the edge. About sixty are up when we hear Meih's voice blasting through our minds:
Move quickly. I can't hold it back much longer.
I rush to the end of the line, take the last two prisoners in my arms. They don't protest-- they're probably too exhausted and confused to. I focus, and my wings and rotor pop out. I start flying, lifting the line up.
I let the others pull us in-- pull me in--
My feet reach solid ground, and I send out a thought to Meih, hoping she can hear it:
It's all right. You can let go now.
The water starts flowing through before my thought is finished; and I can see it take Meih's body, tossing her like a twig--
Got to help her--
I grab the stony side of the ravine and reach out with the metal arm, catching her before the raging water does more damage.
I pull her to the ground at my side and for the first time realize I'm having trouble breathing.
The world is getting dark around the edges...
I glance at Meih, and see the blood... dark, thick, pooling and spreading against her legs...
Leo curses under his breath and tears her jeans apart. "Don, I need.."
I try to shake my head... Something burning my left arm-- Octavian, his fingers... "Don't leave..."
"I won't," he whispers, and fire blossoms on my right shoulder as he takes me, helps me to the ground.
"Can someone get me some help here!" I hear Leo spit through his teeth, and though I know Tave isn't gripping me that tightly, the pain is spreading down my arm, out to my fingers... I pull him to me. Doesn't matter if it hurts, how much it hurts, need him, need him to touch me...
Need him too much...
I see his face swim before my eyes before the blackness takes over...
