The vrak kept pouring in, unintimidated by the bodies piling up in front of them. Some fired energy pistols. Others were armed with short, deeply curving blades. They all acted like death was something they looked forward to, and they didn’t care if it was theirs or someone else’s.
“Die, bad vrak!” Skrew bellowed into the room as he opened up with his minigun. The reverberation, accompanied by the slam of Beatrix’s power hammer and the weapons fire from both sides turned the room into a white-hot symphony of death and destruction.
When Skrew’s gun went silent a few seconds later, he charged toward the expanding cloud of enemy guards and began stomping, smashing, and throwing them. He staggered when one near the rear fired a small rocket that struck the vrak’s mech in the shoulder of one of the smaller arms.
The Ish-Nul were fighting hard, but there were too many enemy vrak. The humans were being forced back into a corner.
Nyna was taking shots with a weapon she’d taken from a guard. Although her aim was inaccurate, firing into the center of a crowd of guards earned her plenty of hits. Yet, they continued to pour in. They continued to fight. It was then that I realized the worst.
None of the guards made any noise. My team’s words were a cloud of profanities, curses, and challenges. They grunted with effort, and when a guard managed to slash Beatrix on her leg, she cried out. But the guards made no sound at all.
I watched as Reaver shot one in the leg and took the creature’s limb completely off. He fell to the ground, tried to get back up, and instead crawled forward, sword in hand. There was only one way that was possible. The vrak were slaves with tech that kept them from feeling fear, pain, or anything except battle lust. They didn’t deserve that, no matter what many of their kind had done. Their deaths would be merciful.
“Press in!” I ordered, urging everyone to stand their ground and, when they could, advance. Though my pistol was effective, sword slashes at bad-breath range would win the day. I told Nyna to stay put and charged toward the horde.
I turned off my planning, thinking, strategizing mind. I felt the blade’s grip in my hand and envisioned the Lakunae, who I was sure had a hand in its construction. I knew the blade as I knew myself. I knew its reach, its edge, and its weight. I calmed my breath and allowed it to become an extension of my arm. I allowed my hand and my eyes to guide my strikes and felt myself fall into a trance, and a line from the Terran Hindu Scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, fell upon my tongue.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” I whispered to the room.
I faced two opponents. One had an energy rifle, the other a sword. When I raised Ebon high, I wasn’t surprised to see neither did.
The first vrak raised his weapon. I saw the muscles in his arm flex as he began squeezing the trigger, so I used the flat of Ebon’s blade to brush the barrel aside toward his comrade with the sword.
I lifted my right foot to avoid the sword slash from the second vrak just as the first fired through his neck. His head lolled to one side, only hanging on by a few inches of flesh. I rotated my wrist, stabbed the first vrak through his guts, and lifted my arm hard, already searching for my next target.
As the first parted down the middle, starting from the top of his head, I caught the flash of another weapon from my left. There was no time to block the strike, so I didn’t. Reaching out with my left hand, I caught the blade, allowing my arm to go partly limp to take some of the shock and striking power out of the attack.
The vrak’s weapon cut into my palm and sent a lightning bolt of pain though my elbow up into my armpit, but I’d saved myself from a deadlier wound. I squeezed the blade with my fingertips as I pressed the flat side into my palm and yanked hard.
The guard had a good grip on his weapon and stumbled forward before he lost his grip. I rotated my wrist and drove the fifteen inches of exposed blade hard into his face, just below his little nose. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. I couldn't help but notice how likely true the analogy was. They were puppets, and their puppet master had to die.
“Ready!” Reaver said behind me.
Without thinking, I fell back to my training. I hacked and stabbed with one hand, and yanked a vrak behind me with the other. We were back in the training room at the training center. I was the grabber, the one who was fighting on the front line. Reaver was my chopper, the one who’d finish off the enemies I pulled through the line. I didn’t have to kill them all.
I pulled vrak guards and tossed them behind me as quickly as I could. With my other hand, I lopped heads, caught energy bolts, and deflected sword strikes. We were a machine, and the number of vrak were slowly diminishing.
“Skrew wants to help!” an amplified, whiny voice said behind me.
I was happy to oblige and began pulling vrak faster, only slicing the ones who were an immediate threat. Several seconds later, the room was quiet, except for the sound of a mech crushing dead guards just to make sure they weren’t faking it.
I glanced back at the team. The Ish-Nul were winded, as was Nyna. All were dripping with blood I hoped wasn’t theirs. Someone had managed to close the doors on the far side. Everyone was smiling, though the Ish-Nul looked more tired than happy.
My hand ached. I had a gash at least half an inch
