Blade. Scrapper. Part 6.. Damantha Makarova
and each of those had a label on the chest of the body inside. Name, rank, platoon.
The woman took a moment, looking at the Company Logo above those and understood exactly what was happening here.
Serena glanced aside and saw a passage leading out. Carrying Lindon there, she lay him down and returned to the corpses of Veluthian children. She needed to remember at least some faces.
She looked at those, who still had some semblance of their features being recognisable, and hoped this would be enough to identify these students to bring some solace to their families. She knew how little this meant, but they did, in fact, fight for their lives – some bodies exhibited signs of a struggle and others were shot several times at different angles, as if the children were moving when the shots were made. Serena even checked those who were shot down and noted that none of those hit the backs.
But that didn’t make her feel any better.
These children fought soldiers, though they were young, barely armed, unarmoured, overpowered…
Chapter 6. Scum
Serena walked on, feeling her head and heart hollowed out by the sights she saw back in the graveyard of a cavern. A few hours had passed, and she moved on only because she knew – Lindon needed aid as soon as possible.
Finally, she ascended a slope and noticed the ceiling of the cave give way to dim rays of light, bursting through the cracks and holes. Feeling her face already covered in sweat, she risked to take her helmet off and took a deep breath, feeling the chilly air inside the cavern surrounding her. Wiping her face, she lowered Lindon to check on him and noted no difference in his condition – he was still unconscious, though alive and breathing.
She took a short break, feeling strained and disoriented, but forced herself to get up again and raise Lindon on her back once more.
Her head swayed, adding to the difficulty of her trudging through the endless caves that surrounded her. She could have made a wrong turn at any time – the exit was nowhere to be seen.
Approaching the corner of yet another tunnel, she didn’t even look out to get an idea where it was leading.
Something hit her in the temple, throwing to the ground, and she tumbled, unsheathing her blades, but as soon as she tried to stand up, a few more blows descended on her, making her fall again.
«And don’t get up, you Veluthian scum!» a man spit at her.
One of the men rolled her over face-down, cuffing her wrists behind her back and when they were standing up, they deliberately stepped onto her lower back, making her growl from pain.
«Now which of you two did I shoot down from the sky?» a man approached.
Serena looked up at him, seeing a harsh, tanned man not older than thirty. He was muscular, with broad shoulders, and carried a sniper rifle. She immediately understood that it was his shot that sent her tumbling down.
«Matters not, you Veluthian whore.» the sniper cackled.
The men around him joined in, filling the tunnel with echoes of their laughter.
Someone grabbed her legs and before she could even kick, she was dragged out into a cavern than was brightly lit by the sun beaming through the cracks above. Serena saw two others drag Lindon in.
«Well, well, well…» the sniper smirked, when Serena could look at him again, gritting her teeth. «What should we do with the two of you?»
He glanced at Lindon and nodded to his men.
Serena saw them approaching the Veluthian and realised what was about to happen. She jolted to Lindon, shielding him with her body and receiving a couple of hits to her head that sent her into another dizzying wave.
«Why not just shoot them?» one of the soldiers asked, when they stepped away, cackling.
«Because we need information, you dim-wit!» the sniper growled at him.
«I know how to make any woman talk all kinds of things!» the youngest of the bunch cackled.
«Yeah, all we need is to get that armour off her body.» the other soldier joined in the laughter.
Serena tried hard to calm her breathing and force down the nauseating wave that was about to throw her into the darkness. Feeling her head pounding, she felt the ringing in her ears subsiding. Though, she could still hear distant thumping – so faint that it was barely noticeable.
«Lieutenant Wilder…» one of the soldiers addressed the sniper.
«What?» he replied, watching Serena closely.
«We only need one of them. The guy’s as good as dead.»
The sniper smirked, seeing Serena squinting with anger.
The woman suddenly closed her eyes and a chuckle escaped her throat, when she finally understood that the rhythmic, barely noticeable thumps were, in fact, footsteps she knew too well.
Lieutenant Wilder kicked her in the face, throwing her to the ground once again:
«You find this funny, Veluthian whore?»
Serena burst out laughing:
«Yes. This is hilarious!» she laughed, pushing herself up and shielding Lindon with her body again. «Because you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. You’ll have just about half a second to regret you’ve hit me even once.»
Before he kicked her again, he was thrown aside by an invisible force, making his teammates nervously raise their guns, aiming all around. Lieutenant Wilder crashed into the cave wall and crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll, no longer moving.
Serena continued laughing, watching how the soldiers began falling – either by a hardy punch, delivered by the invisible cyborg, or a swift blow made by Wolfin’s trusty blade.
«Leave the youngest alive!» Serena chuckled, slowly rising to her feet. «I’d like to interrogate the fucker.»
The youngest of the regiment whipped to her, aiming his gun, but it was suddenly thrown out of his grasp to the ground, and, finally, Wolfin appeared right in front of the young man, flinching to him and scaring him so much that the soldier tumbled backwards.
Serena felt Hunter approaching her and her cuffs screeched, being torn open. When the man deactivated his invisibility device, he caught her in his embrace as she swayed. Pressed against his chest, Serena felt her legs weakening.
«Shit…» she whispered. «Am I glad to see you…»
Hunter sighed heavily and caressed her hair.
«Are you alright?» the man asked quietly. «Did they beat you hard?»
«A Terran’s kick is nothing.» Serena raised her eyes and met his concerned gaze. «I’m more hurt from the tumble I had. And after the scuffle I’ve had with the encountered cave dwellers…»
She decided not to tell him about the underground cemetery she had seen.
Hunter glanced at Lindon:
«He caught you, didn’t he?»
«Yes. He took the brunt of it. We lost most of our stims during our tumble. I had only one and I gave it to him.»
Wolfin dragged the young man to them, shooting daggers with his eyes. Throwing the crying man onto the ground right at their feet, he caught Serena’s chin, studying her bruises.
«Give me permission to interrogate him as I see fit, Captain?» Wolfin asked, keeping the soldier in place with his boot on the Terran’s chest.
«First… I need…» Serena slowly shook her head, feeling another wave of dizziness hitting her. «Lindon needs stims.»
Wolfin took two syringes off his belt and gave her a shot of some painkillers into her neck:
«You too, Scorpi.»