"First Base on Europa"

Isaac alternately paced as well as he was able and stirred the soup on the range oven with a plastic spoon. The others would be back soon, he knew. He hated being alone in the compound, even though it happened fairly often. Ever since the accident and the loss of his leg, he couldn’t go out with the others. Luckily the compound needed plenty of things done from the inside, and one didn’t need a leg to operate the telepresence rig, or Isaac would be dead weight.

A hissing wind had picked up out there, and Isaac staggered out of the galley to peek out one of the round, pressure-sealed windows. Hutchinson Ridge, a huge wall of broken ice, was only visible as a vague black shape through the wind-blown dust, a storm blowing in from the Gradell Sea. The dust, of course, was tiny ice crystals, not earth-like dust. On Europa, water ice was about all there was to see.

“Mobile to compound.” Alice’s voice came through the radio. ”We’re on the way back with the sample. How’s your day been, Isaac?”

Isaac pulled his radio remote off his belt and held it to his mouth. The actual radio gear was in the compound’s comm spire, but the system still reminded Isaac of old walkie-talkies. “Dull. Thanks for asking. Soup should be done by the time you’re back. Looks like a storm’s coming in.”

“I see it. Right over the ridge. We’ll be careful.” Alice’s voice came back. “See you in a few, Isaac.”

“Yup.” Isaac put the remote back in its holster and went back to check the soup, listening to the hissing of ice-dust pounding the side of the compound grow in intensity. The powers that be had detected that particular hazard of Europa, so he didn’t worry that much - the gentle abrasion would take decades to put the compound in danger.

Then the domed ceiling creaked, and Isaac, startled, looked up. Of course he couldn’t see anything. But it had sounded like there was something shifting its weight up there, something alive. He shook his head and tried to put that out of his mind. Europa was, by all indications and measurements, thus far lifeless, except for the expedition.

The garage, sensing the mobile’s return, started equalizing pressure with the thin Europan atmosphere, a sound that made Isaac jump yet again. He was always like this at the end of the day, he knew - jumpy. He had jumped at the chance to go on this mission because he did well in close quarters with others, but after the accident he often found himself all alone in the cavernous compound for twelve or sixteen hours at a time.

Another creak of the dome spurred Isaac to limp over to the window overlooking the garage entrance. Jupiter’s bulk was only visible as a vague orange glow through the dust blowing over the ridge, and below it the lights of the mobile shone out from somewhere on the Gulf of Blades. The tracked vehicle was slow, but it was designed for reliability and safety, not for speed. As it trundled closer, Isaac saw that its roof bore a pair of oblong, boxy containers, and knew that Ginny and Jorge would want to take their meal to the analysis room.

The mobile inched into the garage, and its outer doors rolled shut. Isaac heard the pumps restoring its air pressure. Leaning heavily on the wall, he stumped toward the entryway, eager to greet the others.

A gust of wind more severe than usual slammed into the dome, and Isaac heard the comm tower’s metal framework creaking audibly. It would be one hell of a storm, he decided, but didn’t worry about it too much. The compound was designed to take it and worse.

The doors to the garage groaned open, and Alice stepped in, sniffing the air. “Isaac, I don’t know what you’re making but it smells delicious.” She complimented him.

“It’s nothing.” He dropped his eyes in mild embarrassment. “But come on, let’s eat, it should be done by now.”

Except for Ginny and Jorge, the rest of the team ate quietly in the tiny mess hall. As they had been in each others’ exclusive company for almost three years now, the silence was not uncomfortable, but instead familiar, comfortable. Isaac did not fail to notice that Alice had taken a seat across from him.

As soon as her bowl was empty, she broke the silence. Though it was spoken quietly, her question was audible to the other four men and women present. “What’s bothering you, Isaac?” She asked. “You seem a little... I don’t know. Shaken.”

“I don’t know, Alice. I just think being in here all day by myself is getting to me.” Isaac clinked his false leg against the table. “I’m happy I’m still useful to you all after this. But the silence, the emptiness... It gets to my nerves sometimes.” Harold and Nischa nodded in solemn empathy. It wasn’t that Alice was prying - Isaac knew that, as mission commander, she was just doing her job.

“I understand, Isaac. We’ll try not to be gone too long tomorrow, only a few hours.” Alice replied.

The wind continued its roar. “Unless that mess doesn’t let up, of course.” Milo pointed out.

“Yeah.” Alice agreed. “This one sounds pretty bad.”

Returning the stack of empty bowls to the galley, Isaac stopped at the window looking over Hutchinson Ridge. He saw nothing out there, and at first he thought the shutters were closed, until he realized that the ice dust had piled up on that side of the compound deep enough to cover the window. It didn’t bother him too much - he wouldn’t be the one to go out there and blow it off in the morning.

The rest of the expedition had wandered down into the lab wing, where Ginny and Jorge would probably be explaining all the amazing things they had learned from the ice samples. Isaac found that sort of thing hideously dry, but he preferred being bored in company to being alone.

“... The concentration of those silicate shards is up thirty percent from yesterday’s sample.” Ginny was saying. “So we’re getting closer.”

“Mean shard size was also up eleven percent.” Jorge offered helpfully. “Bigger and more common.”

“But still no idea what they are?” Alice asked.

“Ah, no.” Ginny replied. “Their structure is highly irregular.”

“Maybe - ” Tricia started to theorize, but was interrupted when the lights dimmed in time with a blast of wind so severe that the compound groaned.

“Never done that before.” Alice pointed out. “Harold, opinions?” Harold pulled out his view slate and punched in some commands to the computer. “Hard to say, but it looks like that mess is too thick for me to talk to the weather sat.” He held up the slate for everyone to see the “signal error” message he had received.

“Do what you can from down here.” Alice told him. “Isaac, have the lights ever done that before?” All eyes turned to the crippled man.

Isaac shook his head. “Um, no. I’d have noticed. Not today, not ever that I recall.”

“Wind speed out there is 180 KPH and rising.” Harold read from his display. “One-ninety. Damn, I’m glad there’s not much atmosphere or we’d be airborne right now.”

“It’s never done this before!” Tricia, looking worried, backed up to the wall. “What if it keeps rising?”

”Relax, folks, the compound is rated for two fifty at this pressure.” Harold spoke to everyone, but he was looking at Tricia. “We’ll be all right.”

“If you say so, Harold.” Alice replied doubtfully. “No way I’m going to be sleeping through that. Anyone up for a game of chess?”

“You’re on.” Nischa replied, rolling the “r” sound, the only remaining trace of her once-thick accent. Close proximity with the other seven members of the group had robbed her of what Isaac had considered a very pleasant-sounding mode of speech. “My skill at that sport is unchallenged among us.”

“Chess isn’t a sport.” Isaac pointed out for the dozenth time.

“Of course it is, dear. You just use a different muscle group.” Nischa replied, her counterpoint as repetitive as Isaac’s argument. The exchange was a common ritual associated with the game of chess, and hearing it seemed to put everyone at ease.

The team retired to the wide, high-domed common room, and Alice pulled a gamepad out and set it on one of the flimsy coffee tables. Fiddling with its settings, she got it to display a chessboard, flipped it so that the white pieces were on her side, and made her first move.

The rest of the group watched the game in silence. Alice, playing aggressively, seemed to be dominating the board early on, but Nischa whittled down Alice’s pieces over time. In the end, Nischa won, but neither had many pieces left on the board.

“Two out of three?” Alice asked as she tapped the “concede” button.

“Okay.” Nischa agreed.

“Umm, guys?” Tricia was sitting in one of the big massage chairs, looking up at the thick glass pane at the domed roof’s apex.

Isaac followed her gaze. At first he saw nothing - the pane showed nothing, and he didn’t understand. Then he understood. The unmoving, grayish-white slate was ice dust. “It usually just blows past. Why is it staying put now?” He asked of no-one specifically.

“Wind speed is... hmm. Thirty-one and falling.” Harold read off his display. “But the sensor up on the ridge is still reading one-twenty.”

“We’re in a snowdrift.” Alice summarized.

“Under.” Isaac pointed out.

“The dome isn’t designed to hold weight! What if - ” Tricia looked hysterical.

“We’d get alarms if the weight was trouble. It’s just ice dust. We’ll be fine.” Nischa pointed out. This seemed to calm Tricia down a little. “Next time the wind picks up it’ll clear us off.”

“I hope that’s before tomorrow, or the garage must stay shut.” Jorge pointed out. “That stuff will flood the garage.” The rest of the expedition nodded in agreement. Damage to or loss of the mobile would mean no excursions to pick up supply shipments, no more science projects, no nothing. There were enough spare parts in the facility to build two more mobile crawlers, but assembly could take days, to say nothing of shoveling out the garage.

“Not keen on a vacation, Jorge?” Isaac asked him. “It might be for the best. What’s it been, three weeks since we took a day off?” His mind grabbed onto the idea that maybe being “snowed in” would mean he would have company all day long for a change.

“This isn’t a resort, Isaac.” Alice pointed out cautiously, moving a pawn on the chessboard to start the second game.

Isaac, annoyed at the mild condescension the expedition commander was giving him, tapped his false leg against the wall. The aluminum rang slightly. “I think I know that, Alice.” Not wanting to say anything he’d regret, he limped out of the common room as fast as he could, and headed for the bunkroom he shared with Harold. “Not a resort?” He repeated under his breath as he navigated the cramped access tube to the dormitory wing. Of all the insensitive...

“Isaac, wait.” Alice jogged up behind him, but he kept going. She could easily keep up with his peg-legged gait, and they both knew it. “I’m sorry, I know - ”

“Alice, save it.” Isaac interrupted her. ”Three years we’ve lived in close quarters, I know it was thoughtless and not malicious, and I know you regret it. In fact, I - ”

He broke off as the access tunnel creaked loudly around him. “What - ”

Alice hit Isaac from behind at full speed, and knocked him over. The pair bowled over the threshold into the dormitory wing, and Isaac’s ill-fitting prosthetic slipped off and rolled away.

“Alice, what the hell - ” Isaac tried to protest, but his sentence started about the same time as a groan from the tunnel. There was a pop, then the frightening hiss of escaping air, and the pressure doors on both sides of the tunnel slammed shut. “...Crap.”

Alice rolled off Isaac’s back and pulled her remote off her belt. “We’re all right, what about you guys?” She spoke into it. Only static replied.

Isaac fished out his own remote and pulled up a diagnostic. “No use, looks like the wind knocked something loose out there. The tower’s not responding.”

“Dammit.” Alice stood up and pressed her face to the glass in the pressure door. “Tunnel just failed.”

“Alarms?” Isaac asked.

“Only in the domes.” Alice pointed out. “The tunnels are supposed to take more than the domes do anyway.”

“Damn.” Isaac looked around for his prosthetic, not seeing it. “Where’d my leg go?”

Alice turned away from the window. “What do you mean?” She saw what he meant. “Oh.” She looked around for a moment. “It might be on the other side of the door.”

“Should have had Harold glue the thing on.” Isaac sat up and leaned on the wall. “I suppose I have you to thank for this.”

“Isaac, I’m - ”

“It was a joke, Alice. You saved my life just now. I’m not going to fault you for losing a bit of aluminum. Help me up.”

She complied. Europan gravity made Isaac’s greater weight no problem, and soon she was easing him into a sitting position on his bunk. “How long do you think they’ll be fixing the tunnel?” Alice asked him.

“Hours, I expect.” Isaac replied. “It’d be easier if I were in the telepresence rig. Milo isn’t as quick.”

“Yeah.” Alice sat down next to him. “And with the tower out we’re - ”

“Useless.” Isaac finished for her. “Get comfortable.”

“You know, ever since the accident we’ve barely spoken.” Alice said after a short silence. “I’ve been avoiding you, I think.”

“And I you, I suppose.” Isaac agreed. “It’s not that I blame you for the - ”

“You don’t have to. I do that perfectly well myself. We knew about all the blind crevasses already, I should have told you.”

“I would have known already if I’d been on the main radio channel like I should have been.” Isaac pointed out. “Rather than listening to the newsfeed again.”

“Everybody knew you were doing that. I knew. I should have - ”

“Alice, don’t blame yourself.” Isaac put his hand on her shoulder. “We can share the blame perfectly equitably.”

She made a sort of sniffing, dejected chuckling sound. “But not the consequences.”

“No.” Isaac agreed. “Count yourself lucky, the rest of us do. I’ve tasted your cooking.”

That elicited a bit more laughter. “I suppose.” She conceded. “It’s just so hard to look you in the eye when I know I was at least partly to blame for your leg.”

“Try it now, then. Get some practice while no-one is looking or cares.” Isaac shifted away from Alice and turned to face her. “I don’t blame you. I did, initially, but I don’t now.”

Alice turned to look at Isaac, but her eyes made only furtive contact with his before darting away again. “You look good, you know.” She said quietly. “You’re doing better than anyone could expect.”

“Yup. I’ve lost weight.” Isaac replied sarcastically. “But I wouldn’t recommend my strategy.”

This proved to be another laugh line for Alice. ”Isaac, how can you do that? Make light of even that?”

“It’s my way. The eye contact, Alice. Where’s the old you? The woman who thought herself God’s gift to spaceflight on the way here? The woman that was large and in charge, the woman who - ” Isaac broke off before he said what he was thinking: “the woman who I thought I loved.” That was all ancient history, and things had changed since the expedition had landed.

She tried again, and this time got a full five seconds before she looked away again. “You really don’t blame me?” She asked.

“Nope.” Isaac shrugged. “You don’t believe that?”

Alice stood up and walked to the other side of the small chamber. “People aren’t like that. Forgiveness isn’t that easy, it’s - ”

The sounds of whirring motors against the outer wall made both look in that direction. “That’ll be the rig.” Isaac pointed out uselessly - Alice would know that too. “They’ll have us out before too long.”

“I know.” Alice paced back toward Isaac. “I... I wish I could believe you.”

“You will, when you forgive yourself.” Isaac moved as if to stand, but stopped when he remembered that he was without his leg. “I wish you would.”

Alice stopped, and made eye contact again. This time, she held it, looking into him for something Isaac couldn’t guess. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, but shut it again and leaned in to plant a light kiss on his cheek. Isaac was surprised by this, but not at all unhappy about it. Then she whirled and stalked out the door into the rest of the dome.

“Wait, Alice - ” Isaac called after her, and her footsteps stopped just out of sight. Perhaps, he considered, their real or imagined chemistry wasn’t as relegated to ancient history as he had thought. This idea both excited and terrified Isaac.

“Not sure I’m ready to forgive myself just yet, Isaac. But thanks for being... like you are. I am not sure we’d keep ourselves together without you. I’m not sure I would.”

“I’m glad to help, Alice, any way I can.” Isaac replied.

If Alice heard, she didn’t respond. Isaac didn’t hear her footsteps stomping away, and wondered for some time if she had slunk off or if she was still standing there, just outside the door, waiting for him to say something, and if so, what it was.

This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.

"No Stranger to War"

I watched the ambush from a tangle of rusted construction equipment, waiting for my opportunity. The Collective anti-infantry patroller was no match for the sniper. First they took out the driver, then the gunners. It was quick, efficient. It was too bad that whoever did it would probably not be having the best of days. I needed the same thing they did.

A figure dashed out of a doorway moments later, feet kicking up the ash that coated the street, and climbed on top of the patroller. The attacker, dressed in a filter mask and dark, ratty coat, pulled the masks from the patroller’s dead crew, then started fiddling with the weapons locker. I sensed my opening - I needed a mask if I was going to maintain my performance for long. Damned brass hadn’t built one in, and the silicate ash here would shred my lungs before long if I went without.

The figure didn’t look at me as I approached, but with an overhand toss lobbed something. Before my organic reflexes could react, my implants had isolated the object, recognized it as harmless, and muted the adrenal response. Trusting them, I caught the object, and couldn’t hide my surprise - I was holding a filter mask, exactly what I needed.

“Let’s just pretend you weren’t about to do what you had planned, stranger.” The sniper called out in a feminine voice. I knew I looked like a desperate scavenger, dressed in dusty, threadbare clothes. She couldn’t see the hundred-odd pounds of metal and silicon implants I carried. She didn’t know I could fry her at a twenty meters with my coilguns.

I nodded, and donned the mask slowly, warily. I didn’t bother to defend my intentions, it would have been a pointless waste of words.

“You’ve got balls if you watched that and still thought you could take me unarmed.” The woman turned around, gun in hand. “You’d have been dead by now if you’d been here since the bombs.” She surmised. “Where are you coming from, stranger?”

“Out there.” I said vaguely. I wasn’t going to go around blabbing what I was about, not that I knew it myself. All I had was an arrow in my HUD and a distance.

“Right.” The woman stood up on top of the vehicle, and gestured to a yawning doorway. “Come on. Let’s get out of the open. They’ll come looking.”

I let her lead, ostensibly. My implants swept the dim interior by radar while she cleared rooms manually, and I knew we were alone before she was even halfway done.

“We’re all clear.” She finally confirmed. “I’m Nix, by the way.”

“That’s a callsign, not a name.”

“Yep.” Nix inspected her new bundle of masks. “What about you?”

“As you like. Callsign, nickname, whatever.” I said simply.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She stopped her inspection to look at me, hand going to the gun again.

“Not everyone has a name.” I replied. For those in the know, that was code - black ops field men like me had no legal name, no history, nothing. We were interchangeable and, if necessary, expendable. “Others don’t like the names they’re given. Take your pick.”

Nix’s eyes narrowed. “Those are words I did not expect to hear, stranger.” To my surprise, she seemed to recognize my meaning. “What’s still here that’s worth your time?”

“Sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I gave the rote answer, communicating that that information was secret. That I didn’t know myself didn’t even factor in.

“Really?” Nix seemed surprised. “Even for a Captain? Must be serious.”

“Captain?” I prompted.

“Yup.” She nodded. “Or I was one. Of the Guiscard.”

My HUD filled me in on what I needed to know from the ship name. Captain Nicole Exaro, trained as a Marine, decorated, wounded, transfer to navy security, promotions, captaincy, ship lost. MIA, presumed KIA. She matched the records portrait. “You’re captain Exaro?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ten of us made it down here, but I’m the only one left.” She gestured up. I knew there’d been a battle here, hence the bombed-out, ash-coated city.

I nodded, and pointed my hand to follow my HUD arrow. “I need to go that way, four klicks. Beyond that, I can’t say.”

“Good luck with that.” Nix shook her head. “That’d be their command complex. Defensive line’s too strong.”

Before I could reply, my implants screamed in my mind, and I rolled to the side, feeling my coilguns charge and extend from inside my palms. Unbidden, my hands pointed the coils toward the door, just as two Collective foot soldiers whirled around and took aim. There was a bright flash, and the soldiers disintegrated to join the ever-present ash.

I turned toward Nix, and saw that she was grimacing and clutching both hands to a burned spot on her leg. One of the soldiers had apparently gotten a shot off just before he died. I left her side, active-sweeping the building with my radar, but found no more soldiers.

I returned to find Nix matter-of-factly tying a strip of wetted cloth around the burn. I let her finish before speaking. “How bad is it?” I asked.

“Flesh wound.” Nix replied quietly. “I think I can walk. How... what did you do? You moved so fast... no weapons - ”

I held up a hand, coilgun still extended. “Weapons.” I said simply. “Someone will have heard that.” Protocol would usually instruct me to leave her and continue on my own, but she had to know her way around, that made her valuable. I had just been dropped to the surface that morning, and needed intel.

She motioned for me to help her to her feet, and I complied, slinging her arm over my shoulder to help take the weight off the injured leg. She was obviously in pain, but didn’t complain, aside from the occasional hissed breath.

Sweeping ahead with my radar, I helped Nix out of the building, and let her direct our movements. She picked turns seemingly at random, but I noticed we were winding closer to the city center.

I kept the pace steady until we were forced to go to ground when a patrol vehicle trundled around a bend ahead. Luckily, I was able to get us out of sight before any of the turrets turned toward us.

“You saved my life back there.” Nix whispered.

“Sneakier than I expected from Colls.” I changed the subject to something more comfortable than thanks.

“Back when some of the others were still kicking we put the fear of God into them.” Nix smiled wistfully. “They were easier prey when we started off.”

“They don’t worry me.” I could tell by the sound of the vehicle that it was moving away now, rather than toward us.

“I don’t want to think about how many creds went into building you, Stranger.” Nix shook her head.

“I don’t know.” I admitted.

“You guys are a mystery to us.” Nix pointed out. “No past. No name. No prints. Just protocol. Where do you lot come from?”

“You don’t want to know.” I assured her, with a wince. Those were memories I was not prepared to relive, squatting in the ash of a bombed-out ghost town. Or ever. “Let’s get moving.”

We stopped once more, to scavenge some canned goods from a store, before we found somewhere to hole up. As Nix set about opening the cans, I swept the building, confirming we were alone.

Without plates or utensils, the fare became for us cold, slimy finger-food. I didn’t complain - nutrients are nutrients.

“You know, this place really disgusts me.” Nix said vehemently a few moments after the food ran out. “The people here didn’t really even resist. We got in just as the last batches were going out, rounded up and shipped off-planet. Saw maybe six resistance fighters in total, none of them lasted long.”

I shrugged noncommittally. The people of this world were probably expecting the Confederate navy to ride to the rescue, but the Confederacy couldn’t manage a battle strategy that was more than half-assed lately. the Collective had been targeting flag officers, and that was taking its toll. “They aren’t soldiers.” I pointed out. “What could they have done?”

“More than they did, Stranger.” Nix looked away. “When you’ve got your checklist of objectives filled out, they’ll come to get you, right?” Nix said. She was looking for hope, and I knew I couldn’t give it to her.

“Yes, but there will be no passengers.” She should have known this already. “Only as many seats as the mission expects, no more.”

“Can’t you call in and ask? I’m a damn destroyer captain, you think I could get an evac.” Nix’s voice was bitter, understandably so.

“Your personnel file lists that you’re presumed dead.” I told her. “Lost with the ship. And no, I can’t. Hypercomms are against protocol. I don’t have one.” Well, the HUD module would probably signal mission-complete to the brass, but that didn’t help her.

“Screw protocol.” Nix thumped her fist against the floor. “I’m not dying on this godforsaken backwater.”

I sighed, and shook my head. “I can’t do much, even supposing I get back. They won’t think rescuing you is worth another op.”

Nix looked about to lose it, but after several struggling seconds she shook her head and settled back down. “Sorry, Stranger. I know you have limits, but you look so normal it’s hard to think about what all they’ve stuck inside you. I keep looking for... I don’t know. Empathy?”

“You think I don’t empathize?” I asked rhetorically, annoyed. “Nix, every place I go is some ‘godforsaken backwater’ that I have no business dying on.” My building annoyance, which surprised even me, and seemed to tax the hormone regulators in my system. “I chose to be who I am, because someone needs to be. Someone needs to do the dirty work for the Confederacy, I just have the stomach for it.”

My outburst, though muted and delivered in a level tone because of the regulators, seemed to take her by surprise. “I... I didn’t...”

I could feel the regulators keeping my anger from turning into rage. “You didn’t know that under all the hardware, all the mods, I’m still human?” By her expression I could see that she hadn’t. “Well, believe it. But don’t think that gives me any power to haul your ass out of here.” I shrugged and lay down on my side of the room. “Get some sleep. I want to be moving before the sun’s up tomorrow.”

Nix made a sound as if she was going to protest, but merely sighed and shifted into the corner, to sleep sitting up. I watched her with my radar as I was priming it to watch over us, then set about following my own advice.

I woke an hour before dawn, and nudged Nix awake. I helped her limp out of the building and back to the streets.

From a vantage point several floors up a vacant building I considered the situation under the pale light of sunrise. In addition to heavy antipersonnel emplacements and a veritable wall of patrolling soldiers, I picked out at least five elite super-soldiers - poor souls who had almost as much implanted tech as I did. They were hard to kill except at close range, and usually better armed than I was. The only way in I could see was surrender, but I couldn’t do that. They’d blast me as soon as they got a decent scan. But maybe there was another way...

As I watched the cordon, my HUD changed, showing the names and portraits of three people, all Confederate admirals, each had at least three stars. I was apparently rescuing three people who each outranked the director of the whole black ops program.

“What are you thinking?” Nix asked after a short pause, as my eyes wandered away from the window and over to her. She looked younger than her thirty-six years, and that even under all the grime and ash she was quite attractive.

“I think it’s high time you gave yourself up.” I said simply.

I received only a curiously raised eyebrow in response, and filled her in on my idea. She agreed hesitantly. The whole thing was distasteful, but kosher under ops protocol, and I hated the protocols for that, but I had little choice. I had to complete the mission.

I helped Nix get to her feet, and down the stairs to the street. “Give me a count of one-twenty.” I told her, and turned to leave.

“Wait.” Nix didn’t let go of my arm, so I turned back. “What if this doesn’t work?”

I turned back, and in my mind I could not tell if what I was about to do was calculated or motivated by something more human. “Nix, trust me.” I pulled my mask down to rest on my neck, so she could see the expression on my face. “I am not throwing away your life.” With one hand I gently lifted her mask off her face, and she did not resist.

“But your protocols. How can I be sure?” She asked.

I met and held her eyes, then leaned in to kiss her on the lips. I kept it gentle, brief. It had been some years since I’d last kissed a woman, but I found it to be something not easily forgotten. She inhaled deeply, in surprise, but not in alarm. I wished I could have enjoyed the experience as much as she did, but the conditioning and the regulating implants kept the feeling muted.

As I drew away, she nodded. “I’m... I’m sorry, it’s just... What they tell us about you lot...” She said quietly.

“I’ll do what I can for you. But the mission comes first.” Again, I turned, but only halfway. “Goodbye for now, Nix.”

“See you in a few, Stranger.” She replied. As I ran off, I heard her start counting.

Nix stumbled out into the street, hands upraised, barely a block from the cordon. “I surrender! For God’s sake, I’m starving, I give up, don’t shoot!” She called, as dozens of weapons and more swiveled toward her. Three of the super-soldiers nearby stepped out and hauled her back behind the line. There was a brief radio conversation, and then those three escorted Nix back towards the dome. I started creeping closer, extending my coilguns. These new odds were far more to my liking.

The klaxons sounded the moment I hit the weakened cordon, but it didn’t matter. By the time anyone came running, I was inside the defenses, and by the time the cordon closed over the gap I’d blasted in it, I was already inside the dome. I went to ground there, and sure enough the three elites that had escorted Nix came running back. Two headed outside, the third stood guard at the entrance, but he was expecting the threat to come from outside. He didn’t even see me coming.

The guards in front of the facility’s holding cells were line soldiers, not elites, and they died rapidly. I stalked inside, and the HUD again showed me the faces of the three I was tasked with recovering, but it was Nix I found first. She was in the first cell. There was a fresh bruise on her cheek, but otherwise she looked more or less as I’d last seen her.

She was alert, watching the door as I looked in. “That was quick, Stranger.” She said. “Gonna let me out?”

I responded by powering up my augments and winding up to punch the metal door. Nix stepped to the side, and I swung. It fell inwards, and I tried not to show how much that hurt to do.

There were only ten cells, and my targets were the only other prisoners. Giving Nix a beam rifle and telling her to watch the doors, I punched their cell doors down as well. The admirals were emaciated and scarred, but alive. As soon as I had all three, one of my implants I hadn’t noticed made a hypercomm call. My HUD displayed a timer, along with the words ‘blast extraction’ - a phrase I liked to see. I had ninety seconds.

Leaving the three admirals in a cell, I ran back to Nix, and arrived just in time to dodge a withering salvo of energy beams - mostly. I got grazed twice, and felt the regulators suppress most of the pain. An elite and a group of soldiers had Nix pinned down, but there was good news - the extraction killbox was painted for my eyes right around the entrance, and the soldiers were standing in it.

As the seconds ticked down, I traded shots with them from around the corner. It was no use - my coilguns’ batteries were not designed for lasting firefights, and their reinforcements seemed infinite. I had only a few shots left.

As my shots became more infrequent, the soldiers got bolder, led by their grinning elite commander. Nix twice took shots at him, but the beam rifle proved useless against his subcutaneous armor. I knew all we had to do was keep him close to the doors, and the extraction shuttle would take care of him on its way down. He was advancing out of its killbox, though, and there were still fifteen seconds left.

I caught Nix’s eye and gestured that we needed to stall them, hoping she understood. I used one of my last four shots on the elite, and it hurt him enough to make him take a step back. Nix used the momentary disorientation to take a shot at his face, which didn’t have any effect but to momentarily blind him. The other soldiers tried to return fire, but Nix was too quick. They only managed to superheat the wall behind her. I drove them back with another shot. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. We had to draw this out more, I knew.

Nix grabbed a piece of rubble that looked vaguely grenade-like and lobbed it over. “Fire in the hole!” She bluffed. The soldiers backed up but didn’t run. Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight. The elite seemed to be regaining his senses. “Get them, you fools!” He yelled. I countermanded his order with another coilgun blast. Seven. Six. My heart surged. We were going to make it.

The elite dove forward suddenly, over the desk, and grabbed Nix. I jumped on his back and knocked him over, throwing Nix aside. I remembered the three unarmed admirals behind our meager defenses. “Nix, get them!” I shouted, meaning the admirals. Five. Four.

Nix scrambled to her feet and limped to escort the admirals toward the melee. The soldiers trained their guns on me, but as I was currently choking their elite superior, they didn’t risk firing. Three.

He was faster than I was, and his neck armor made my chokehold rather pointless. I took a supercharged elbow to the chest, which would have killed a normal human. Two.

I tripped the elite, and landed on top of him, left hand around his neck and bashing at his head with my right arm until his hand closed around my fist and forced it to a stop. One.

I watched the tenths of a second tick away on my HUD. “Zero.” I hissed.

The front of the holding area and all the soldiers evaporated in a super-bright haze, and I knew that at the center of the haze would be an extraction shuttle with four seats.

My radar told me as I struggled that Nix was pushing the admirals past my brawl and into three of the four chairs in the craft. As soon as they were secure, she hesitated. “Get in!” I yelled without looking. The elite, recovering from his surprise, managed to get on top of me. I let him think he was winning a moment longer while my coilgun charged up, then released my last shot into his neck. When the flash dazzle cleared from my eyes, the elite’s shoulders were topped by a cauterized stump, and his body was limp.

I extricated myself, stood up, and moved over to the shuttle. The launch controls were keyed to me, and Nix was sitting in my seat. I matter-of-factly reached in to start the launch sequence.

Nix grabbed my hand and pulled me closer, into a deep, urgent, brief kiss. I let her, not because of protocol but because I wanted to, and keyed the launch sequence with my hand as I drew back.

“Goodbye, Nix.” I said simply, and the shuttle’s canopy sealed over her and the admirals. I stepped back and watched it lift up from the ground, accelerating rapidly.

I towards the dome exit, picking a mask off one of the fallen soldiers. In the confusion the shuttle’s explosive entrance and exit invariably caused, I managed to slip the cordon, and retreat into the empty streets. Yes, I’d breached operation protocol by putting Nix in the shuttle, but I suspected the brass would understand. And if they didn’t, then they could go to hell, I knew that she did.

This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com. It was disqualified from the competition due to my inability to make it fall within the word limits set in the contest rules.