“Yet again,” Rhea commented.
More bolts came from Horatio, but the robot ducked from view as plasma fire was returned from somewhere on the far side of the fountain.
Rhea and Will quickly spread out and approached the fountain at a crouch from opposite sides. Rhea sort of waddled back and forth as she moved, the crouch position proving awkward in that lower gravity.
A highlight appeared on her HUD, and she realized Horatio had marked the target. A red dot also appeared on the overhead map, giving her the precise position in relation to herself.
She reached the rightmost rim of the fountain and continued forward, slowing down as she rounded the bend. Her target was just ahead.
If she had been human, her heart would’ve been pounding in her chest at that moment. As it was, her breathing came so rapidly the sound of it nearly consumed her hearing within the helmet.
Before she sighted her target, a long metallic tail jutted upward. The tip was pointed toward her.
She threw herself backward.
Plasma bolts erupted from the tail, smashing into the ground just in front of her, melting big holes in the ice.
“Careful!” Horatio sent.
Horatio fired down at that tail, which buckled under the impacts; it quickly withdrew from her view.
Rhea was trying to think on how best to approach, when a large shape leaped into the air, arcing over her. Rhea saw the silhouette of the Scorpion against the stars overhead. He was just as big as the last time she’d encountered him, except this time he had two tails protruding from his tailbone, instead of one. That was the augmentation Horatio had been referring to.
Both of those tails were pointed directly at her…
Rhea scrambled to her feet and began randomly zigzagging as she bounded away. Plasma bolts bit into the ground all around her. Ice fragments produced by the impacts traveled higher than they would have under ordinary gravity, and the shards peppered the air all around her, pelting her suit like hail.
This continued for what seemed an eternity, but in reality, only seconds could have passed.
And then the attacks ceased.
“Shot out both of his tail tips,” Will said. “That was a bad move, strategy wise, to expose himself like that. Guess he thought it was worth the risk for a quick chance of taking you out.”
Rhea risked a glance behind her and watched the Scorpion land on a nearby rooftop with a loud thud. The assassin ducked from view.
“That’ll be the last of his plasma weaponry, then,” Horatio said. “I eliminated the rifles he had attached to his arms. He has only brute strength left now.”
“Brute strength?” Rhea broke into a run and headed toward the building the Scorpion had landed on. It was only three stories tall: easy enough for her to surmount with a single leap in the diminished gravity. “I can handle brute strength.”
“Dude, wait for us!” Will said.
“I’m not letting him get away this time!” She switched the pistol to her left hand and activated the X2-59 in her right. The blade erupted and the electrolasers engaged, causing electricity to spark all around it. The weapon cast a flickering blue light over her body.
“I’m a Ganymedean warrior. I can face him.” She took a running leap…
Her body arced upward with a momentum that made her feel truly powerful, and she passed over the rim of the roof beneath her and landed relatively hard. The impact produced no sound of course, but vibrations would have traveled outward across the surface.
Ahead of her, the Scorpion was indeed fleeing. His hulking figure reached the far side of the rooftop, but he looked over his shoulder and paused when he saw that it was just Rhea who had arrived to confront him. He smiled, baring his white, glistening artificial teeth.
He wasn’t wearing an environmental suit of any kind, which meant either he was holding his breath, or his body had an internal oxygen tank installed somewhere. Given how long he had likely been hiding inside the ruined colony, only the latter made any sense.
He had marks in his chest where Horatio’s energy bolts had struck. Mostly glancing blows, from the look of it. Though there was one solid impact in the upper left of his torso, where a bolt had partially melted through to the circuitry beyond, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.
His two tails swayed back and forth hypnotically.
And then he broke into a run, intent on closing the distance. Alone on the rooftop like that, she was too tempting a target to resist.
Rhea opened fire with her pistol. It had been somewhat of a mistake to switch the weapon to her left hand so early, as she had trained mostly with the right. Her first few shots missed their mark badly, but after the fourth she began to score glancing impacts. It didn’t help that the Scorpion zig-zagged back and forth, making tracking difficult, his movements a blur. The lower gravity only worsened the situation, allowing him to bound two strides for every one step.
And then he was upon her. The blunt tip of one of those tails slammed into her left hand, knocking the pistol free.
Rhea brought down her X2-59, slicing through part of the tail, but not severing it entirely. However, the blow was enough for the appendage to drop limp to the rooftop.
But the other tail was already coming in upon her.
Rhea wasn’t able to raise her blade in time and the metal slammed into her side. She flew into the air, the lower gravity causing her to vault across two entire roofs before landing on top of another building that bordered the square. She hit face down and slipped across the entire surface of that flat roof before skidding to a halt next to the far edge.
Her side throbbed with pain. Definitely some damage to her metal exoskeleton there. She was amazed that the blow hadn’t punctured her suit.
She turned over and started to get up, but then a black silhouette blotted out the stars above her.
She
