Its neck slammed down and she flattened herself; the neck struck the upturned couch, halting its descent, sparing her from being crushed. The neck retracted, then those gaping jaws came plunging down upon her, and she rolled to the side. The pistol snagged on a tooth and was torn from her grasp and swallowed.
Again and again that head lunged, and Rhea rolled left, then right, then left again, barely avoiding the strikes each time.
The leonine head retracted, pausing to assess the situation. Studying her.
Then it struck again.
Once more she rolled away.
Could use some help here, Will, she sent.
Working on it… Will transmitted. You know it still has four other heads we have to deal with, right?
The metal of the cargo container moaned overhead.
She risked an upward glance and realized the container was slowly collapsing, crushed from above as the Hydra applied pressure with a leg, or its body.
Motion at the periphery of her vision told her the head was coming in again, and she barely leaped aside.
The metal continued to squeal above as the roof slowly compressed. She wouldn’t be able to stay here much longer. The Hydra was blocking the way out, but she knew it would have to withdraw momentarily, unless it wanted to be crushed as well. The problem was, its head would probably retreat only a few meters, just enough to clear the collapsed section, so that when she followed, she’d step into its waiting maw.
Sure enough, the head withdrew. She peered past the topmost edge of the couch. As expected, that leonine head was eagerly waiting for her.
A big section of roof collapsed, and a metal brace broke away. It bounced on the floor in front of her. It was a little longer than her arm, and the broken end formed a sharp triangle, like a machete. Or sword.
A sword…
On a whim she scooped up the brace from the wreckage, gripping it at the base like a sword. Then she pulled herself onto the couch and leaped off before the roof could collapse completely and trap her inside.
The waiting head struck.
Still in midair, Rhea plunged the brace forward, aiming for the eye. She felt a moment of resistance when the tip made contact, but the feeling subsided almost instantly and the brace plunged inward, sliding into the brain case. The head continued forward, driven by momentum: the gaping maw struck her, but there was no crushing force behind it.
She crashed into the couch behind her and the head rolled lifelessly to one side, releasing her. The metal brace remained firmly lodged in the eye socket, embedded almost up to the base. The head didn’t get up.
She heard howls from outside. The neck withdrew rapidly, dragging the head with it before she could retrieve the brace.
“What did you do?” Will sent.
“Stabbed it in the eye with a piece of wreckage,” Rhea answered.
She shucked off her backpack and retrieved the only weapon she hadn’t yet given out, one she’d nearly forgotten: the X2-59. She’d kept it because, as a bladed fighting implement, she hadn’t really considered it a real contender. After all, it was much easier, psychologically at least, to fight the Hydras from afar, herding the creatures into one another with energy weapons, rather than closing with them to engage with a blade. She’d told herself the X2-59 would barely cause any damage anyway and wasn’t worth the risk.
She’d been wrong on both accounts.
It’s time to stop running. Time to take the battle to them.
She strapped the X2-59 onto her wrist. She felt afraid yet determined at the same time. A part of her wasn’t looking forward to close quarters fighting with these creatures. Another part yearned for it.
She deployed the blade. It erupted from her wrist, reaching to a length of almost one-point-five times that of her arm. The electrolasers activated, enveloping the blade in bright blue plasma that sparked across the surface like electricity.
She resolutely strode forward and left the cargo container.
Unsurprisingly, the Hydra was waiting for her.
One of its heads immediately bore down upon her.
She calmly dodged to one side and sliced down with a sword form she instinctively knew. The head flopped away, partially severed.
That sword form was called Parting the Wind.
How did I know that?
Another head came in. She leaped upward, landed on top of the muzzle, and stabbed the blade with another instinctive form, striking the left eye at just the right angle so that the tip passed all the way through the brain case to emerge from the opposite socket. That sword form was called Threading the Needle.
She withdrew the blade and leaped down as the head dropped lifelessly beside her.
In that instant, a memory flashed into her mind.
She was on an ice world. Clad in a spacesuit, she wielded a pair of glowing, translucent disks, one per gloved hand. She was rushing an ice shelf, sprinting directly into the incoming fire that came from those in cover behind it. She deflected the shots with the energy disks as she ran, and when she reached the shelf, she leaped over it. The lighter gravity allowed her to easily clear the icy mass, and she swiveled the glowing circles down to protect herself.
When she landed on the other side, she attacked her enemies, using the edges of the disks to puncture their spacesuits in turn. She saw herself reflected in their mirrorlike faceplates. Her own faceplate was clear, and she could see the sheer determination written all over her features; that, and the eyes glinting with bloodlust.
She moved systematically among her enemies, somersaulting and flipping. She transitioned entirely to offense, transforming the discs into twin blades of energy, and cycled through the sword forms, striking down mercilessly.
And then she was back upon the ruined street. The whole memory had
