“I promise.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you think is going to happen? Why do I keep feeling that this is goodbye?”
She shook her head. There wasn’t time to explain. “Later.”
He stepped back and drew his blaster. “Just make sure there is a later. You hear me?”
She smiled as a ribbon of almost manic joy wound its way around her heart. One way or another, she was going to keep her promise to the others. “I hear you, love.” She was off and running before he had time to react, but she heard him laughing as he followed her down the corridor. She might be running toward her death, but she wasn’t running alone, and that made all the difference.
She was almost to the shuttle bay doors when Absalom’s cold, polished voice came over the ship’s speakers. “Hello again, Subject One. I wondered if you were part of this ill-conceived attack. I’m glad you came, because it gives me a chance to say something I couldn’t last time.” He paused for half a heartbeat before speaking again. “Goodbye, Subject One.”
No! She skidded to a stop as fear gripped her in a strangle hold, crushing her ribs and making it almost impossible to breathe. She’d never considered… never thought about… dammit! She turned to Eric and held out her hand to him, knowing she only had a second or two left.
“I lov—” She didn’t get to finish speaking before Absalom spoke one of the nonsensical phrases she’d learned to dread, the shutdown command she couldn’t override.
She waited for the inevitable spike of pain that came before the darkness swept over her…but nothing happened. She didn’t know whether to scream in defiance or sob with relief. It hadn’t worked! Laughter burst out of her, giving voice to her feelings in a long, joyful exhalation that rang off the walls of the corridor.
Eric stared at her, elated and somewhat confused. He raised his head and called out to the air. “Hey asshole, don’t interrupt my lady when she’s talking.” Then he winked at her. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but before you explain, can you say that again, starshine?”
She threw herself into his arms, still bouncing with relief and euphoria. “I love you, you lunatic. But I don’t understand. I should be unconscious, or dead.” Absalom had told her more than once he could kill her with a word if he wished. She thought he’d do it… but he hadn’t. Or couldn’t.
“So, you learned how to deactivate the code. Disappointing.” Absalom sounded almost bored, but she knew him well enough to detect the undertone of annoyance in his words. He didn’t like it when things didn’t go according to plan.
She threw out the challenge she’d held close to her heart for so long. “I’m coming for you, Absalom. Do you hear me? You’re going to pay for what you did to me and the furies. You’re going to pay for all of it!”
There was no response. Not that she expected one. Absalom was too smart to linger now that the odds weren’t in his favor.
“Come on!” She sprinted toward the shuttle bay, leaving Eric behind after only a few strides. She needed to reach Absalom before he got away. She might never find him again.
“Nyx, you copy?” It was Aria.
She cursed and slowed enough to tap her comms, leaving the channel open for two-way communication. “This is Nyx.”
“We need you on the medical levels. Hurry.”
She wanted to refuse, but something in Aria’s tone made her hesitate. “Why?”
“It’s the fury. Some bitch ordered her to attack us. I had to...She’s dying. Cris says he can’t save her, but you might be able to. Something about your nanotech being compatible?”
Medi-bots were genetically coded, and the fury was her clone. If she was bleeding out, she’d be losing medi-bots too fast for them to heal her, but if the clone got a fresh infusion she might live. Might.
Nyx beat her fist against her thigh in frustration. Eric stood in front of her, steady and silent, waiting for her to make her choice. A sudden flood of cool gratitude poured over the fire of her fury, cooling it. Eric was with her. She didn’t have to choose.
She grabbed him by the front of his uniform and hauled him in for a quick kiss. “Kick his ass for me, lover.”
Then she was off again, flying down the corridor as she recalled the route to the medical decks. “Blink, it’s Nyx. I’m on my way.”
The layout of the ship was remarkably similar to the last station she’d been held on, and part of her brain wondered if they’d been designed by the same person, or at least at the same facility. She bypassed the elevator in favor of the ladders that linked the floors, jumping from level to level in a matter of seconds.
She listened to the battle chatter as she ran, not that there was much actual combat going on. Trinity and Dax had taken over the bridge, and judging by the carnage on the medical level, Cris and Aria had eliminated all the resistance in the area.
She ran past a half-dozen dead bodies, all of them armed and wearing security patches on their arms. She scanned them as she passed, looking for anyone familiar. She found two faces she recognized, and was startled to see them on more than one of the bodies. Clones. Eric had been right. They were using clones.
“Blink! I’m here. What room?” She called out instead of using her comms.
“Here!” Aria’s muffled voice came from behind her, so Nyx spun around and headed back at a jog. A door opened to her left and Nyx raised her weapon, ready to shoot in case it was a trap. “Show yourself.”
“Over here, and don’t you dare shoot at me, it might break a nail or something.” Aria called and stuck her hand out in a casual wave.
Nyx snorted. It was definitely Aria. “I don’t shoot my friends.”
Aria stuck her head out, grinning. “Get your ass in here and save your sister. Or is she your daughter? Whatever. She doesn’t have much time. We scanned her. No implants, but Trip says there’s too much damage for her to heal herself.”
Nyx handed her blaster to Aria as she passed the other woman, then lowered the volume on her comms and closed the channel so her words wouldn’t be broadcast to the others. “Where’s Sabre?”
“He finished clearing this level, tagged another medical lab like this one, and went on to the next floor. Dante’s got no life signs on the floors below us, so Meyer figured he could handle the sweep solo.”
The air in here reeked of charred flesh and fresh blood, the scent overpowering the ship’s air scrubbers. There were bloody streaks on the polished metal floor, leading from a spot inside the doorway to where Cris was crouched beside a scorched and bloodied woman wearing a familiar face – hers.
It had been years since they’d allowed her to interact with the other furies, and she’d forgotten how shocking it was to see another version of herself.
She hurried over and dropped to her knees beside Cris. The fury opened her eyes and managed a grim smile. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Could be.”
“You came,” The fury’s voice was weak and getting weaker with every word. She’d taken a blaster bolt to the chest and another to her shoulder.
Nyx reached out to take the fury’s uninjured hand. “I told you I would, and brought some friends along with me. Stay alive and I’ll introduce you to them.”