Can The Lady Make An Exit, Or What? pt. 3
(S)


        Chenille rested, back against the warmth of Harvey's cylinder,
going over the next phase of their plan.  Harvey was humming softly to
himself as he monitored the internal happenings of Watcher, his baritone
voice creating a soothing background rumble.  She smiled as she recognized
the song, a pretty tune with incredibly bawdy lyrics.
        Everything was going well.  Taandra had lifted off safely with the
stolen shuttle and was on her way back to the relative safety of Excalibur.
And after a middling struggle to replace the damaged power coupling, with
Niccolo's help and Harvey's patient instructions, that too had been
accomplished.  She glanced at her chrono.  Four hours and twenty-seven
minutes till watch change.  Taandra should be rendezvousing with the
Excalibur about now.
        Niccolo would be back soon.  She busied her hands with repacking
the medkit.  She loaded the hypo with a heavy duty tranq before slipping it
into its slot.  The rest of her tools followed with a speed born of
countless repetitions until all she had left was the slender box and the
deadly Blank. She transferred the little explosives from their box into her
left waist pocket, wonder how many safety codes she had just violated, then
tucked the detonator securely into her bra.
        What do to with the Blank though?
        She picked up the innocuous device, the fat end of its oval form
pressed against one forefinger, the rounded point against the other.  The
material that made it invisible to all scanning devices created a strange
rippling sheen in the subdued light.  Michael's scent radiated from it and
she drank it in.
        Captain/friend/lover/life it said, sparking the memory of his
voice, the warmth of his body.  One of the few humans who knew what she was
and loved her anyway.
        Michael had carried this assassins tool in a holster next to his
heart since the time he had received his commission in the Imperial Navy
and it was the sole reason he had survived his forced retirement.  There
was only one time he took it off and then it was always within easy reach.
It was a part of him.  The only part he could send with her.  He had
pressed it into her hands as she was boarding the shuttle.
        "Just in case," he had said, pitched low for her ears only.
        She remembered the first time Michael had shown her how to use it,
the first time they had made love.  He had laughed with tolerant amusement
at her reluctance to handle a thing of death.  He had carefully molded her
hand around it and she now reproduced the grip, hearing his voice.
        "Flat side against your palm, narrow end toward the target.  Good.
Your index finger goes against the activation panel, like so.  Feel across
the top with your thumb.  That indented place is the firing button.  Now
all you have to do is squeeze and push."
        The rational part of her mind said leave this thing here, safe with
Harvey.  A cold wash of air over her right cheek announced Niccolo's
arrival.  She slid the Blank into her right hip pocket.
        (Everything's set on that end.)  His thoughts were jittery with
anxiety.  (Let's get it done.)
        He blinked out again.
        She slid the strap of the medkit over her head and opened the small
hatch.  Closing it behind her, she made her way to the main entranceway.
        "Harvey?"
        "The flight deck'll be clear an' ah'll be ready an' waitin'.  You
jest be careful liberatin' that idiot pilot of mine, 'kay?"  His interior
lights went out and the hatch opened with a gentle hiss.  "Ya'll clear.
Luck."
        Chenille dropped noiselessly to the deck, merging into the shadows.

* * *

        She and Niccolo had decided to start their orientation tour at the
main briefing amphitheater.  Harvey had pulled a schematic of the huge,
multi-tiered room before Niccolo had gone to visit Albion and they had
decided on the best placement of the five bombs.
        She waited now just inside one of the ten doorways that ringed the
room, committing its layout to memory while Niccolo scurried to place the
explosives.
        The holo equipment had been retracted, leaving an even floor and
only one square-arched passage gave access  to the ground level.  Directly
across from it the flat area of the command platform bit into the third and
fourth tiers.
        Harvey had informed her that ship-chat was saying that Rachael
Shaw, Albion's companion, would have the honor of being Ophidian's
companion for the execution.  Just exactly what part she would play in the
vile Lord's evil plans remained something of a mystery, but at least she
would be there.
        All in one place.  Good.
        The worry in Chenille's subconscious twitched, trying to resolve
into a coherent thought.
        Niccolo's (Hssst!) overrode it.  The flight jacket slid off her
shoulder and she leaned over, gathering the Roben up into it.
        (Next stop?) he asked.
        (Communications.)

* * *

        Their tour finished back where it had begun.  Chenille checked the
time as she entered the Amphitheater.  Watch change was just beginning and
already the room was starting to fill.  She hurried down an aisle, heading
for the seat she wanted-on the bottom row, midway between the ground entry
and the command platform.
        She reached it seconds before a young pilot did, receiving a dirty
look and a polite salute as she slid into it.  Leaning over to retrieve the
jacked she had apparently dropped in her haste, she handed the comm to
Niccolo and retrieved the detonator from the safety of her cleavage.
        She settled back, studying the room.  An executioner's block now
occupied the center of the floor, directly in front of her.  She closed her
eyes, blocking out the memories of other executions and the anticipation
and bloodlust which beat at her heightened senses.  The sudden silence
alerted her and she rose smoothly with the rest of the room in deference to
the Lord Ophidian.
        He stood, framed by two honor guards, at the top of the wide ramp
that led to the command platform.  An imposing figure draped in a full
black cloak with the hood pulled so far down that only the stern mouth and
bearded jaw found any illumination.
        Chenille fought a shudder.  When the Hunter came for her, she knew
he would look like this.
        An attractive red-haired woman came up from behind the guards to
stand beside him, favoring the crowd with a dreamy smile.  Chenille frowned
as they stared down.  Something wasn't right...  She was distracted by a
flicker of motion from the access passage.
        The executioner stood at attention, just inside the square arch,
the heel of his long-handled axe resting against his right instep, the
speeding molecules that formed its edge glittering like a million ice
crystals as they refracted the bright lights.  She strained to make out the
movement behind him.  The room sank around her and she threw herself back
into the seat, only a half a heartbeat behind the rest of the row.
        Stupid!  Stupid!  Now was no time to get distracted.
        The executioner started forward, followed by the two prisoners,
arms bound behind them at elbow and wrist.  They were followed closely by
four armed escorts.
        Max stumbled and fell heavily to his knees.  A snicker ran through
the crowd.  Chenille's hand tightened around the detonator with outrage.
        (Easy.  Easy...)  Niccolo's calm tone steadied her and she forced
her hand to relax as one of the escorts hauled Max roughly to his feet and
shoved him forward.
        She took several deep breaths as the execution detail moved slowly
to the center of the room.  Max and Albion were halted in front of the
executioner's block, facing the command platform.  She forced more
adrenaline into her system.
        The guards fanned out to form a ten foot cordon around the block.
        Covering her eyes and holding her breath, Chenille pressed the
detonator.

* * *

        Watcher shuddered once as it went deaf, dumb and blind.  Bucked as
its great engines skipped a beat then died.  Inside chaos arrived, heralded
by twenty well-placed explosions.
        The main amphitheater burned for three seconds with a light that
allowed no shadows, then plunged with a deafening boom into darkness.
Albion was squashed into a the floor by a warm pressure.
        Shock wave, his mind told him as he blinked frantically, trying to
get his eyes to adjust to the blackness which engulfed him.  Something
scurried onto his back and he recoiled his muscles to roll.
        (Hold still,) the Roben said and he relaxed a little.  (Keep your
eyes shut)  There was a strange echoing quality to the Roben's tone.
Albion realized that he was addressing Max as well.
        The band that held his elbows parted and his nostrils were assailed
by the smell of burning circuitry.  The little feet moved farther down his
spine.
        (Try your eyes.)  After a few furious blinks he focused on to
silent carnage backlit by dim red emergency lighting.  (There's a comm next
to your right ear, put it on.)
        His wrists came free.  The Roben skittered up to his shoulder and
he shoved the comm into his ear and adjusted the pick-up.
        (Roll right!)
        His body obeyed the Roben's shrieked command and he rolled into a
crouch, facing the axe blade which now occupied the space where his right
shoulder had lain.  The executioner yanked the blade up, a maniacal grin on
his face.  The grin was replaced by an O of surprise as something slammed
into him, knocking him off balance.
        (Move!)  The command was accompanied by a mental picture of the
direction he must take to get to the command platform.  He hesitated,
wondering if he should help whomever had tackled the executioner.  (Go!)
The mental bellow was accompanied by a sharp nip on his earlobe.
        He spun, starting into the thick smoke, the Roben clinging to his
shoulder to keep him on course as he dodged stunned crewmen and leaped over
fallen bodies.
        His hearing must have returned somewhere along the nightmare path,
because he was suddenly aware of a familiar feminine voice screaming
somewhere above his head.
        "Help us!  Oh, God, please!  Help us!"
        Rachael's voice.  Albion vaulted the low wall that separated the
floor from the first row of tiers and banged painful into seats as he
pounded towards the ramp.  He spotted the red head about fifty feet above
him, struggling with the black clad figure.  As the distance between him
and the struggling pair narrowed, he barked a warning (Off!) to the Roben.
        Niccolo jumped just as Albion flew into the couple, sending them
all into a sprawling pile.  Rachael tried to scramble away on hands and
knees until he managed to capture one of her slender ankles.  She spun on
him and froze.
        "You!"
        He was pleased that she recognized him and began to smile his best
reassuring smile when she kicked him in the face with her free foot-hard.
He caught the foot as it launched for another kick and tried to pin her
writhing form.
        "Let go of me you... filthy rebel slime!" she hissed, raking his
face with her nails.
         He dodged her strike and did the only thing he could.  She slumped
beneath him as he struck the pressure points on either side of her neck.
Rocking back onto his heels, Albion tried not to cough as his lungs
attempted to pull some air out of the smoke.  The Roben was suddenly in his
head, almost incoherent.
        (OH SHIT!!!)
        (What?!)  Albion whirled, ready for another attacker.  All he saw
was the Roben bobbing frantically over the fallen Lord's face.
        (What are you doing?) he bellowed at the agitated Roben.
        (Tell 'em he's here!)
        (Who's here?)  Had the little being gone mad?
        (MAX, you MORON!) the Roben shrieked.  (This isn't Ophidian!  It's
MAX!)

* * *

        Chenille reached the first guard three heartbeats after the shock
wave, slamming the hypo into the unprotected space between torso armor and
helmet.  The tranq made sure he wouldn't get up for at least six hours.
        The second guard lay in a heap of unnatural angles, beyond the need
for a hypo.  A guilty wail of anguish stared somewhere deep inside her as
she moved on.
        The third had made it onto hands and knees before the tranq put him
down.
        A fourth came staggering toward her, seeing only an Imperial med.
She lowered him gently as the tranq took effect.
        A glittering flash of motion brought her whirling around-the
executioner was going after Albion!
        She hit him low as he raised his axe over his head for a second
swing, her left shoulder connecting just under his left hip, her right hand
jabbing the hypo into his right buttock.  The man swung at her as he
stumbled away, the axe blade ruffling her hair as it sped by.  She looked
for Albion and Niccolo as the executioner fell with a boneless grace, but
they had already disappeared into the smoke-filled chaos.  She willed them
luck.
        Max was on his knees as she hurried to him, smiling that
devil-may-care smile of his.  He angled his back at her in silent request
for freedom.  Her subconscious did a quick scan as she concentrated on the
binders.
        The one around his elbows came free as her mind sorted the
information.  He was a little shaken, surprised and something... the wrist
binders came loose in her hands  ...something not...  Ophidian's strike was
honed to the speed of thought, but Chenille reacted from instinct, a speed
beyond thought  ...NOT MAX!!
        She had a second of awareness in which the body arched away from
her.  The tang of singed fabric and blood were in her nostrils and she was
aware of the weight of the Blank in her hands.  Then the inhibit ripped
into her.
        All she was aware of after that was her body's frantic attempt to
outrace the genetic assassin that was now enforcing the First Law of the
Healers who served the Imperial Household.  Numbing pain exploded somewhere
in the middle of her skull.  Her heart paused for a moment, then grudgingly
resumed its frantic beat.
        Chenille became aware that she was not dead and with the awareness
came amazement.  Detachedly, she studied the source of the pain.  Quite a
bit of damage but not the fatal embolism that should have occurred.  She
activated mental dampers and the pain subsided to a near tolerable level.
She had a strange urge to laugh but knew that it would take too much
effort.  Right now it was simply hard enough to breathe.
        Why was it so smoky?
        Something was making noises in her right ear.  Insistent noises.
Familiar noises.  She concentrated on them and a part of her numbed brain
kicked in.
        "...lin', come on, talk to me!  Damn it, Chenille!"  Harvey noises,
her mind informed her, not to be confused with Max noises.
        "Go 'way."  Her own, almost inaudible noise startled her.
        Not noise, she remembered, voice.
        Why was she lying in an uncomfortable heap on the floor?
        "Chenille?  Now you know ol' Harvey's half deaf, darlin'.  You're
gonna have to talk a little louder so ah kin hear ya, 'kay?"
        "Vee?"  There was real fear in Harvey's voice.  Why?  Something
must be terribly wrong.
        "That's right darlin'.  Now you jest keep on talkin' to me, 'kay?"
        Why was he so upset?  She worried at that.  Something had gone
wrong.  Wrong with what?  Her mind suddenly snapped into focus in a blast
of pain that arched her body and left her screaming.
        "CHENILLE!!"  Harvey's howl threatened her eardrum.
        "'m'ere, 'arveeee," she managed to gasp.  "Sop ssowwing."  She
realized her words were slurring badly.  Not a good sign.  One corner of
the medkit was trying to burrow its way under her rib cage.  She tugged on
the strap weakly and managed to coax it away from her body.
        "What happened?"  Harvey had modulated his tone into a fierce whisper.
        She worked on rolling over onto her back.  "ee kill 'phineun."  The
words came out flat.  Such a simple statement to explain such a complex
action.  She made it onto her back and began working on straightening out
her limbs.
        "You hurt bad?"
        She wasn't sure.  Her right side was okay.  In fact, the Blank was
still firmly clenched in her right hand.  The left side wasn't so good.
The arm tingled up to the elbow and the leg flirted on and off with
numbness.  She wanted to say yes.
        "'m m-m-mobile.  're's Max?"  She shoved the Blank into the top of
her uniform, working it down so it rested under her breasts.
        "He's with Niccolo and Albion, headin' mah way.  You jest find a
nice little place to hole up in.  Ah'm gonna' send 'em back for ya."
        "No."  With an effort she forced most of the slur out of her voice.
"Oo stay on the ozers, bu' keep a year open..."
        "You sure?"  The voice sounded worried.
        "Yesss."
        There was a pause, then the click behind the right ear as Harvey
switched frequencies.  She ran the contents of the medkit through her mind,
but didn't find anything that would help without putting her out.  Her body
screamed at her to curl up into a little ball and sleep.  She told it to
shut up and started struggling up into a sitting position.
         She stifled a shriek as her right hand, flung out for support,
landed squarely on quivering flesh.
        Ophidian lay beside her, the left side of his chest a gaping ruin.
He was still alive.  She stared stupidly at this man, so much like their
Max, and every instinct screamed at her to flee.
        Still alive.
        Her left hand moved of its own volition, placing itself gently next
to the gaping wound.  She forced her tired brain to catalogue the damage.
Severe shock.  Massive hemorrhaging.  Left lung collapsed.  Three ribs
gone.  His heart pounded under palm, struggling fiercely against the
darkness.  He would be dead within minutes.
        There was no conscious decision, only the screaming need of a hurt
body.
        So much like Max.
        She melded her nervous system into his and willed damaged blood
vessels to constrict, reducing the flow of blood out of the body to a
sluggish ooze.  Numbing damaged nerve endings, she rebalanced the chemicals
of his body to pull him out of shock.
        Fumbling the medkit open, she reached for the sealer.  if she could
get the major vessels closed and the lung sealed he might survive until she
could get him to Medical.  A painful pressure closed on her left wrist.
Hurt/confusion/surprise/fear came with it.  Her head snapped up, startled,
to find Ophidian glaring at her through pain narrowed eyes.
        "You must be still," she said, sending trust/calmness/soothing
warmth through the link, then focused her entire being on keeping him
alive.

* * *

        There was someone hovering in the background of her concentration.
Someone surprised at the gentleness of her hands and the care she took not
to cause more pain.  She glowed like the sun across the stranger's senses.
        A panicky voice came from somewhere outside the link.
        "The Lord, is he dead?"
        She ignored it, refusing to be distracted.  The someone with her
growled in irritation at the stupidity of the question.  Would she be
working so hard to save the life of a dead man?
        Done.
        "Ge'a ssrecher."  Her bad hand shook with the effort as she sprayed
on a temporary bandage.
        "I need a stretcher, NOW!" the officer beside her bellowed into the
smoke.
        The hand that had encircled her wrist reached up to trace the line
of her jaw in a feather soft caress.  Curiosity/want/need flooded into her
brain.
        Too much.  She nudged his consciousness over into healing sleep.
        Too much.  Confused panic yanked her to her feet and she lurched
into the officer as her left leg buckled.  He grabbed her, keeping her
upright as the stretcher, guided by two gore-spattered young meds, floated
out of the smoke.  They stared at her with eyes bleak from seeing too much
death in too short a period of time.
        "Ge' 'm to med, satt," she snapped, gripping the arm of the officer
who was supporting her.  "S'ay wi' 'm."
        "But what about you?"  He didn't think she would stay on her feet
if he let go.
        "'ere 're others 'oo rewire my ssill."  The slur was making it
difficult to communicate.  She could see the conflict in his face.
        "Do 't!" she said, putting the force of an order behind the slurred
words.
        The officer snapped her a salute, then turned to take command of
the stretcher team.
        Chenille fled, fell over the low wall onto the base of the ramp,
willed herself upright and began the climb.  It was harder than she
imagined it could be, but she continued, staggering towards the safety she
knew awaited for her on the flight deck.  Somewhere deep inside, Ophidian's
essence still tingled along her nerves, goading her on.