Rhea dashed forward. The nearest creatures had their backs to her, so she rushed the closest and climbed up its tail. When she reached the top, she severed the tail. The stump waved violently, tossing her forward. She landed on the ground and had to roll away before those heads could strike her.
She raced underneath the next bioweapon, joining Bardain.
“You made it,” Bardain said. “Good. Now we can kick butt.”
Bardain served as a distraction, threading in and out between the legs of his enemies, while Rhea swung onto the backs and cut off the tails. However, the bioweapons kept coming. She found it hard to keep up.
“We’re going to need some reinforcements, here,” Rhea transmitted, marking her location on the overhead map.
A head struck her in a glancing blow, and she slammed into the side of another bioweapon, before sliding to the ground. She rolled away as more heads came at her and ended up beside Bardain once more. They moved together, doing their best to avoid the attacks as they passed beneath each Hydra.
The Hydras developed a new strategy: they formed a circle around the pair and squatted down, forming a solid barrier of flesh that neither Rhea nor Will could slip under.
“Well girl, looks like this is our last hurrah,” Bardain said. “We always knew we’d die today.”
“Hold on!” Will sent. “We’re almost there!”
No matter where Rhea and Bardain turned, there was always a bioweapon waiting for them. Blood gushed everywhere as they danced about, maiming every appendage that came at them from the perimeter of that deadly circle: tentacles, stingers, talons, feet, heads. But the bioweapons were ruthless, and always there was another appendage coming in, another death blow, usually launched from multiple sides.
Rhea fought her hardest. She wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t give in, no matter the odds.
But eventually the inevitable happened, as Bardain knew it must. As she knew.
After barely deflecting two talons, and dodging three lunging heads, several stinging tentacles wrapped around her body. They twisted her every which way.
At the same time, more talons came in, slicing and dicing.
She died.
31
Rhea awoke, taking a deep breath through the gills that lined her sides.
Gills?
She looked down upon herself, and flexed limbs that were tentacles. She was floating in a green vat of liquid.
So, she had been reborn as an alien after all. And yet, she still had her memories. She remembered dying just as if it were yesterday. She remembered Will, Horatio, Bardain, and everything it meant to be human.
If she was an alien, she would find a way back to Earth, she swore she would, and then she’d make contact. Assuming these aliens even had the technology for interstellar travel. Things weren’t quite looking good in that department: tentacles weren’t really the best for building a civilization with.
At least her death hadn’t been for nothing. She had died fighting for the people of Rust Town. Still, she wondered how many of them had even noticed her sacrifice, save for Will, Horatio and Bardain.
She just wished she knew the outcome of the fight. The residents seemed to be winning before she died, but that didn’t mean they had emerged victorious in the end. Even if they had, Rust Town would have paid a high toll in blood.
The thought made her want to return to Earth all the more.
I’ll find a way.
Then again, for all she knew, hundreds of years had passed before she was reborn. Time likely worked differently after death. Especially the time between death and rebirth.
Before she could ponder these ideas further, the world went black once more.
She opened her eyes to a bright light. She squinted and raised her tentacles to shield her face.
No, wait. These weren’t tentacles. But fingers. Hands. Arms.
She glanced down at herself.
She was human again. Or cyborg, rather, judging from the metal sheen her body possessed. A bad dream?
“Sorry about that.” Will entered the light, his head and torso partially blocking the illumination. “We had to put you in a temporary cyborg body, since your brain case had cracked. We jury-rigged an octopus robot from the local menagerie to serve as that body. Hope it wasn’t too much of a shock.”
“For a second there I thought I’d been reborn as a bioweapon,” she said. “Or an alien.”
Will laughed. “No. Sorry to give you a scare like that. You weren’t meant to wake up in there. As soon as we noticed you were conscious, we put you under again immediately. Anyway, we got your brain case repaired, and reinstalled your mind. We dressed the artificial skin, giving it time to heal, and also replaced the rest of your body—the last one was fairly trashed.”
She looked down at herself again. She was lying on a table. She hadn’t noticed before, but her body did look different. Shinier. The limbs appeared thicker, yet also sleeker. Had to be more powerful. Her right arm had the X2-59 attached. She deployed the blade, and watched the electricity spark across the surface, courtesy of the electrolasers.
Seeing the weapon brought back the memory that had flashed into her mind during the fight. She saw herself racing across the ice world once more, taking out attackers hiding behind the ice shelf.
“Hey, put that away before you hurt someone!” Will said.
She retracted the humming blade and it vanished into the top of her wrist.
She returned her attention to Will.
“Bardain?” she asked.
Will shook his head sadly. “The old bastard didn’t make it. I’m sorry. We found his corpse straddled over your body like a shield. When I reviewed the logs of nearby security cameras, I discovered he fought to the very end, protecting you after you went down.”
She blinked away the tears and looked away.
“We won,” Will said.
Rhea nodded. “That’s good. His death wasn’t for nothing, then. None of the deaths were.”
“Well, depends on your point of view,” Will said. “If Aradne hadn’t done
