Rhea leaped at him, slicing downward with her X2-59. But she was hit by the remaining operational tail, and her blade skidded harmlessly off the edge of her opponent’s leg. The blow sent her slamming backward onto the roof, and she slid across the icy surface, crashing into the low wall that lined the edge. Once again her suit remained unpunctured.
It can’t take much more of this punishment. Nor can I, for that matter.
“Will,” she sent. “You were right. Help!”
“Coming,” Will replied.
The Scorpion advanced, taking slow, bounding steps, dragging the dead weight of his damaged tail behind him. The good tail remained posed above him, just as deadly despite the fact it could no longer shoot plasma. He was still smirking sickeningly.
Rhea clambered to her feet. Her left arm was hard to move, and the elbow servomotor whirred loudly in complaint inside the suit. Pain in her upper chest signaled potential damage to her armor there.
She backed away slowly along the edge of the wall, shuffling her feet, keeping the X2-59 held defensively in front of her. The reach was too short against that tail.
“Will!” she sent.
The Scorpion’s tail came striking down one more, a lethal stinger aimed at her face. Rhea dodged to the side and swung.
But the Scorpion was already leaping backward, withdrawing his tail at the same time, so that the appendage retreated in a blur. Rhea’s blade cut only empty space.
She turned around, bounded to the edge of the rooftop, and leaped off. But something struck her ankle as she left the ground and spun her sideways into the air.
As she spiraled across to the next rooftop, she caught sight of the Scorpion, vaulting across directly behind her. He’d struck her with his tail once again. In his hands he held a large fragment of rock, perhaps ripped from the wall of the previous rooftop. He threw it at her.
The Scorpion timed the throw just right, so that as her body continued to spin, she rotated right into the path of that rock, and it slammed into her face, jerking her head backward. She felt a mixture of sensations then: an intense cold that chilled her face to the underlying metal; a stab of sheer agony, courtesy of the fragment, which crushed her nose before bouncing away; gentler pricks of pain, from the pieces of glass digging into her cheeks.
An alarm flashed on her HUD.
Warning, suit integrity failure. Pressurization loss. Warning, suit integrity failure.
She held her breath. If she were human, she would be dead now.
But she was cyborg.
She landed on her belly on the adjacent rooftop and spun around to meet the Scorpion with her blade. The assassin had meant to crush her with his two feet, but he spread them wide to avoid the X2-59 then, doing the splits in midair. He slammed his tail into the ground next to Rhea, using it to halt his momentum.
Rhea swung at the base of that tail, cutting into it just as the Scorpion shoved off. She severed the tip.
The Scorpion reached down and ripped away two more fragments from the roof and tossed them at her. She dodged them easily.
He backed away, ripping away more pieces. He didn’t throw them. Not yet.
She realized he was stalling. Waiting for her. He could afford to.
He knew that while Rhea’s artificial face and body would protect her brain from the effects of the void, she would only be able to hold her breath for so long. Since she didn’t have a full body to oxygenate, but “merely” a brain, she could last a lot longer without air than an ordinary human. Somewhere between five to ten minutes. However, she’d still have to fix her helmet. The repair kit didn’t really have anything to deal with the loss of an entire faceplate, but she’d deal with that later.
For the moment, she had to defeat the Scorpion. And quickly.
She bounded at him, using the X2-59 to deflect the rocks he threw at her.
That tail struck out, but she leaped acrobatically to the side and past it, using a muscle memory she didn’t know she had. A memory that knew precisely how to position her center of mass to optimal effect in the lesser gravity. At the same time, she swung at the tail, striking it with a glancing blow. She withdrew the blade, bringing it forward once more. She landed, and immediately leaped toward the Scorpion, closing the gap, stabbing at her enemy’s face.
But the Scorpion was ready. He pulled his head to the side and the blow missed its target, cutting a gash only a few centimeters deep into his cheek.
He grabbed her out of the air with one arm and threw her forcibly to the ground. He pinned her torso with one massive foot, and her X2-59 arm with the other. Grinning triumphantly, he crouched very low, and drew back one hand, forming a fist that, when it struck, would collapse her face and drive right through into her underlying brain.
He had won.
10
Rhea stared at that fist and waited for death to come. She never thought the journey would end this way.
Then again, no one ever really expected the end when it finally came.
Strangely, she smiled, welcoming it.
That made the Scorpion pause. His hand drooped slightly, and he tilted his head as if confused; the smirk dropped from his lips, and it was replaced with anger as he gritted his teeth and drew back his fist back with renewed alacrity.
“I’m going to kill you, you little bitch,” those eyes said.
Plasma bolts slammed into his face and arm and he staggered sideways without throwing the punch. He stumbled off of Rhea, releasing her, and spun away, lifting his tail toward the source of the blasts to shield himself.
Rhea rolled to her knees and chanced
