Angel tries to track the creature as it takes its lunge for Swim's, and sees the big alien get mauled for his trouble. As soon as the creature clears him, Angel advances again, his gaze down the sights of his rifle, firing short, controlled bursts of three, moving his aim slightly to the left and right as he does.
Whatever instinctive reflex or defensive ability the long-snouted, murderous quadraped used to leap through Swims-the-Black's sword like it wasn't there doesn't seem to work against hot lead. Well, not literally hot lead - the armor-piercing rounds loaded in the team's SCARs are the same alloy from which the Imperial swords are made - but the effect is surprising, given the creature's seeming indestructibility a moment ago.
Angel's gunfire rakes across the thing's flank. Bullets slam into the near-featureless hide/carapace/skin and leave rippled craters, like shells fired into thick clay. The creature doesn't make a sound as it's hit and visibly damaged, although the piped-in screams over the team's voxes cease. It flops over on its side as Angel hits with another burst and scrabbles to get to its feet - which are even now strobing into wide, padded limbs meant for running.
Swims' howls change to rage. He didn't really internalize that the assault rifles didn't rely on electronics, but after seeing Angel's success the maimed, enraged Whiirr rips his own SCAR from its sling and raises it to fire. The creature almost - almost, for a split-second - acts like it's going to try to take Swims' severed arm with it, but the shipmaster's long, rattling burst chases the thing out of the Gate chamber before it can get it. Swims' shots rip more ragged holes through the thing's rear legs and hip as it clumsily leaps for the relative safety of the dark spaces beyond the chem-lights' glow.
It's gone before Arketta and Ngawai can bring their own weapons to bear. Ngawai takes a few loping steps after the creature, then stops before getting out of the chamber. Arketta rushes to Swims, an helpless expression overwhelming her normally calm demeanor.
"I... I don't know what to do," she says. "The kauka won't help him..."
"Just... oh, I don't know, we gotta stop him bleeding!" Ngawai retorts. "Fuck!" She reaches for her Turai-issue aid kit and the thing's help features don't initialize. She tries another power cell. Nothing. Ngawai finally just gets the case open and spreads the injectors and other nonpowered tidbits on the floor.
Angel's a hunter. Of men, most recently, with the occasional machine or vehicle thrown in there, but his mind looks for weak spots, how to take down prey. The way the thing moved when Swims' sword didn't hit it, it didn't dodge per se, it just knew the blade wouldn't touch it. It didn't act like a reflex, but rather some sort of innate power. And it's not based on what it's hit with, not like silver for werewolves. The SCAR rounds were the same alloy as Swims' blade. And Angel doesn't know why it made a half-hearted attempt to make off with the Whiirr's arm, either.
But it's out there, close, maybe running for shelter, maybe waiting for them to chase after it. One man down due to some ill-advised alien doohickey, their toughest asset - whom they can't heal with their frisbee by virtue of not being human - hurt REAL bad, and their doctor down due to... Angel's still not sure, but smart money's on the alien doohickey.
"Real's not gonna matter when I saw you in half," Jonno's voice hisses in Luis' earbud. The dead man's hand produces a stinger and wiggles it in anticipation while Luis focuses. First off, he picks up clues from the situation. Of all the people he recognizes, all the people on the List (and he can see more now, scattered about around the burning vehicle), Davis and Hugh aren't on it. Davis wasn't there the day the IED went off, but he's definitely in trouble, wherever or whatever he is. Hugh WAS there, but Luis saved him that day...
It's hard - like pushing through a wall of thick, choking mud - but Luis can feel something shift. He glances past Jonnoperest to see Hugh looking visibly better.
Angel grunts and gets out his own aid kit, slinging his rifle.
"Ngawai, watch where that thing went, make sure we know if it decides to return for a snack. Arketta...get your head in the game. Doc's out, see if you can figure out what the hell is going on with them and snap them out of it."
He does what he can for Swim's given he's not a doctor, and mostly just tries to get the bleeding stopped.
"First, we should deal with the BMP." Davis grabs an RPG and hands it to Hadiya, then grabs one for himself. "Time to go to work, right, Hadiya?"
She smiles at Davis, and it's the same old twinkle, the sense of being in on the joke, that Davis sees in Ngawai - he has time to realize that it's because it's his own brain creating it, so why wouldn't it be that way, before the rumble of the BMP is joined by more AK fire, this time a lot closer. The insurgents are moving in, and Davis and Hadiya have to move.
Enough of his mindscape has changed that Davis doesn't know where the hostiles will come from this time. He exits back into the dusty street and immediately puts down a Taliban fighter with a quick double-tap. The white-robed, ammo-draped figure falls and bleeds. Hadiya's rifle announces her presence a few meters behind Davis; a second enemy spins to the earth, spraying blood on the sand.
Kalashnikov's myriad descendants chatter away all around the small village as the pair shoot, sneak, and climb their way to the newly-destroyed rubble of one of the larger buildings. The BMP is coming down the main throughfare, ignoring for the most part the villagers trying to kill it with rifle rounds. The IFV swerves to hit one of them and Davis winces. That wasn't how he remembered it - which means whatever is causing this to happen probably has more than the average resources invested in the leftover Russian APC. Although it worries him, Davis leaves Hadiya with the high ground and skulks back down as the BMP rolls past.
Suddenly, thunder and then silence. The ringing starts as Davis finds himself prostrate in the middle of the street. Whatever it is must be trying to cheat as well; there was no way the APC could have known Davis was in that alley. Davis spots his RPG a few feet away with the BMP's bulk a blurry mountain past his focus. Hadiya's RPG hits the tank on the rear flank, a strike that Davis feels more through the ground than his ears. Shrapnel spirals into the sky and smoke billows from the thing's engine.
The cannon starts to turn towards Hadiya's position. Davis forces himself to move. The RPG weighs heavy on his shoulder as he lines up on the BMP. A barely-heard whoosh blasts Davis' face with heat, then the fireball from the Taliban vehicle triples that intensity.
As if Davis' mysterious assailant was holding them back, the distant prop wash of incoming Black Hawks filters over the battlefield. It's just a distraction, trying to get me to focus on the memory, not the reality behind it, Davis thinks, and tries to search for some metaphysical chink in what he hopes is this nightmare's armor.
Ngawai nods. She takes Swims' rifle and reloads it, then hands it back to the Whiirr before tossing a few of the chemlights further into the next chamber. No monster, at least not yet. Meanwhile, Angel tries to staunch the weakening Swims-the-Black's bleeding. The dim green light doesn't help, nor does the alien physiology. Angel's not worrying about attaching the arm, however, and neither is Swims, apparently. The alien passes out about the same time that Arketta figures out that Luis grabbed the ansible to move it away from Davis, and that's probably why he's out too.
Another burst of recorded screaming startles the team and prompts an exploratory three-round burst from Ngawai. After the thing doesn't show, Angel gets back to work. It takes all the coagulant and a lot of improv, but Angel stops the bleeding and seals up Swims' shoulder socket with a mass of messy-but-functional goop that quickly hardens into a latex-like cap. The poor alien remains unconscious and breathing at a relaxed and steady rate.
Arketta's manhandled Luis to where she could possibly drag him off of Davis and break his contact with the ansible. She reaches under his arms -
---
Jonnoperest suddenly stops and looks around for a second. His voice-as-radio says "She's coming to wake you up. You can tell her to stop, you can stay here and amuse me... or you can go with her."
Arms pull Luis back, trying to drag him away from the wounded, from the mush-faced Jonno.
"If you leave here, she dies first. Tell her to let go."
Davis focuses, tries to concentrate on the ansible, and can almost feel the smooth surface. The chopper wash increases, and Davis gets flashes in time with each whup. The first few are Imperial Avatars. He sees glimpses of the machines suddenly amok, slaughtering whatever unsuspecting subjects within arms' reach. A Needleship bridge runs red with the blood of its command crew. Nobles die at the gilded hands of one of the machines, high above Hedion's sprawl. One has the unfortunate fate of starting a brawl during a tour of a fortress world. It dies, slagged by its own soldiers.
Davis sees the ansible connections. He wills away the berserk Avatars, looking for the culprit behind this mental violation. He can feel an immense weight pushing him back, a magnetic resistance as he digs deeper. Even false-Hadiya is trying to drag Davis' self-image away from the BMP wreckage when he feels/spots/hears three still-unknown threads. He hears the wet splashing and muffled choking of a drowning man, aged and brittle, from somewhere behind his eyes. Someone scared, someone small and afraid and trapped in a useless body being slowly and sadistically murdered by something that has waited patiently for this chance for a long time. Something that lets the man have just enough air to draw it out, to make it last.
This thing, whatever it is, it was Nabil and the BMP and - Davis sees himself crumpled on the sand, looking up at Arketta dragging Luis away from an undead Jonnoperest - it's the Jonno-demon as well. A cold intelligence meant for efficient murder, turned sadistic and cruel by millenia. It is old and it is bored and it wants to play.
It's also forcing Davis back out, back into one of the connections, but he's willed himself this far. He could probably choose which path to take back, or forge on ahead against the thing, but it's a hard thing to leave Luis, and Davis feels pretty sure the thing will tire of drowning his other victim soon...
The bleeding stopped for now, Angel gets his rifle back in a more usable position and joins Nagwai.
"Have I mentioned how much I hate the Imperium? Seriously, join the Army, see the Universe, get eaten by some sort of shapeshifting protohorror on the ass end of the galaxy."
He takes one of the chemical lights and throws it downrange of them, hoping to illuminate where the creature came from.
Davis has mere moments to make a decision, and he quickly weighs the benefits of each possibility. Luis has Arketta helping him, pulling him out of whatever the hell mess they're in, so he's okay. Going after whatever the hell is doing this to them is a tempting thought, but then he realizes that the old man that's being slowly and repeatedly drowned must be the Emperor himself. He and his Avatars are plugged into the ansible too, which means that this thing is attacking them remotely.
Seeing the opportunity to, if not finally get the Emperor to have some friendly respect for them, get him to owe Davis one or at the very least think twice about the whole "screw talking, kill them all" position, Davis redirects himself and lets the thing force him down the connection leading to the Emperor.
Soft hymns undercut the sloppy, sputtering sounds. Davis blinks and sees a chorus of brown-robed men singing in a triple-deep crescent around a contraption of tubes, screens, and fluids. One Keeper, tall and bald, with the golden cranial implants common to such brethren, is holding a pallid, naked, wizened old man's head underwater in a long, large tub/coffin/capsule. Like the Matrix, or the Cylon fluid baths, or a bathtub version of the hypersleep pods from the Alien movies.
The choir doesn't appear terribly bothered by the grisly event taking place before them.
"Greedy meatsack," the tall Keeper hisses next to the Emperor's ear. "Thought you were clever, thought you could cheat death. You thought I was gone forever, Kao, third of three siblings. Yes, even thought your name would be forgotten along with your weak flesh, thought you would somehow ascend beyond your meat-self. To me, your systems are as naked as you are. Proud, greedy, barely-sentient creature."
The assembly of robed men don't seem to notice Davis. They ignore the fact that he's still armed with his M4, M9 sidearm and IOTV body armor. They don't seem to care as he runs up to the Keeper forcing the Emperor's - Kao's - head underwater.
They definitely start caring when he puts a 5.56mm bullet through the Keeper's forehead. They shout and scream in horror as Davis bends down and lifts the Emperor out of the water. They panic and run as he opens fire into the assembly, mowing them down. When his M4 runs dry, he draws his sidearm and starts firing at whatever stragglers are still in the room and those who lie bleeding on the floor.
Once the room is still except for Davis, the Emperor, and the flowing blood of the dead, Davis bends over and checks the Emperor for a pulse and signs of breathing. *Got a pulse, that's good. Not breathing, that's not so good.* Davis starts rescue breathing, and after a minute or so, the Emperor sputters back to life.
Davis waits for him to start fully breathing on his own, and then sits down next to him. "You're welcome."
Angel takes one of the chemical lights and throws it downrange of them, hoping to illuminate where the creature came from.
"Any idea what our friend is?"
"Nothin' that'd help, I'm afraid," Ngawai offers. "Picked up a bit of religious babble when I worked on Sambasan. The Masters had enemies, which is why they took us from Nars- uh, Earth, and so I guess this thing is a 'demon' to their 'gods'. I don't know if they take special killing or anything, though. Sorry."
The glowstick illuminates a little farther past where Ngawai tossed hers. Smooth walls curve into smooth floors with open circular archways separating each chamber. It looks like it might be sort of three-sided honeycomb arrangement, with most chambers branching into no more than 3 archways.
Semi-soft chunks, shot off the thing by 7.62mm fury, lie scattered across the next chamber. The "demon" doesn't seem to bleed, which makes tracking it a little harder.
Jonnoperest suddenly stops and looks around for a second. His voice-as-radio says "She's coming to wake you up. You can tell her to stop, you can stay here and amuse me... or you can go with her."
Arms pull Luis back, trying to drag him away from the wounded, from the mush-faced Jonno.
"If you leave here, she dies first. Tell her to let go."
Luis feels arms pulling him back, something apparently real amonst the macabre facade that...whatever is pretending to be Jonno is part of. "I don't negotiate with dead men. I have to face other's deaths every day, you think you're scary? Seeing people die is my cross to bear, and you think you can use it against me? Death's a devil I know all too damn well, and I'd rather fight it than play your sick game. Bring it on." He closes his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the arms pulling him away from the scene.
In a well-timed response to Angel's lament, Luis gasps as Arketta pulls him back from Davis, breaking his contact with the ansible. It's no different than waking from a nightmare, splitting headache notwithstanding. Luis sees Swims-the-Black, chest rising and falling slowly but surely. Angel and Ngawai are in the next chamber, peering at what little they can see of the surrounding chambers.
"Luis, can you hear me?" Arketta asks. "You in there?"
Davis waits for the Emperor to start fully breathing on his own, and then sits down next to him. "You're welcome."
*cough* *sputter* *wheeze* The Emperor Kao flops over and slowly sags to the floor, his back against the large capsule. He finally regains some air and begins to laugh; spittle and drool snakes down his hairless chin and form quivering strands.
"Even in my nightmares I am not rid of you, Davis," Kao coughs. "What are you doing here? Why has the demon released you?" As he waits for an answer, the Emperor seems to get visibly better. Like Davis, Kao appears to have some control over the immediate mindscape. His features grow younger, his skin slightly darker. Simple robes in a style even Davis recognizes as antiquated appear in a blink.
In a well-timed response to Angel's lament, Luis gasps as Arketta pulls him back from Davis, breaking his contact with the ansible. It's no different than waking from a nightmare, splitting headache notwithstanding. Luis sees Swims-the-Black, chest rising and falling slowly but surely. Angel and Ngawai are in the next chamber, peering at what little they can see of the surrounding chambers.
"Luis, can you hear me?" Arketta asks. "You in there?"
Luis winces, putting one hand to his temple as he uses the other to pull himself up. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good. What did I miss?" A looks takes in the chamber, and a sinking feeling sets in his stomach unrelated to the pounding in his temples (How do ruminations on my life always end up with me having a headache?) "Did...are you the one who pulled me out of the thing?"
Davis rolls his eyes at the Emperor's first remark. "I thought that maybe I'd do the decent thing and save your life," he says. "This...thing, whatever it is, got me at the same time it got you. It's pushing its way in through the ansible, and I pushed back. I got close to where it's coming in, but then I heard it trying to punch your ticket and I came over here to save your ass."
Davis stands up and reloads his weapons. "Whatever it is, it seemed to know you, Emperor Kao, and I'd bet that you know what the fuck this thing is. This thing is going after my friends out there in the real world, not to mention using your Avatars to do some serious damage, so you need to tell me what this thing is."
Kao smiles as Davis drops his real name. "I wish I knew. All I know are the muddled legends of monsters my ancestors battled on the Masters' behalf. Nothing concrete, nothing that explains how to stop it. But we did stop them, and so we must stop this one."
Davis nods. "Agreed, before it kills anyone else, either my friends or any of your people." He extends his hand to shake. "Truce, Kao?"
"Out of the thing?" Arketta answers Luis. "I dragged you off Davis' ansible. You must have tried to move it when you checked him. What thing were you in? Wait, no, first - there is a creature in here with us somewhere. It has hurt the Whiirr but Angel has stopped his bleeding. We fought it off but we don't know where it is."
---
Kao takes Davis' hand and the agent pulls the king to his feet. "As you are my ally in this, so shall I be yours."
Kao gathers himself, the vision of perhaps a man in his sixties rather than the ancient near-corpse Davis saw in the tank. "You say it is using the ansible. I have been using naught but that device for over twenty years. Point me towards this demon, Davis."
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