The instant Tessa’s feet left the ground, something happened. Eyes registered a change in the globes, a subtle flicker of blades near the Cygnan– and then there was steel in the air. Fingers pulled triggers reflexively, one shot going wild, the other burning acrid patches into jellied sapphire skin. Too far, still too far. In the click-broken silence, the Cygnan rent the air with a shrill, angry vibration that bit and throbbed in every bone like the vicious, howling pain of a fracture. The shards of chrome hesitated mid-air, shifted, reacted almost as if by instinct.
Part of Tessa died the instant she saw the shards dart for Izzy, the instant she saw that phalanx of bladed steel redirect and plunge for the woman she loved, each spike unwavering and cruel. She cried out, shouted, screamed, pulled the trigger again and again, even as new spheres darted in and flattened themselves to absorb her wild shots. Blood blossomed into the corridor, splashed the blueskin, got in Tessa’s eyes as she closed the distance between herself and the alien monstrosity, ducked under a wall of surreal chrome and threw herself into the tangle of Cygnan limbs. For an instant, the thing seemed to growl, to throw off a vibration that made her head spin, that made her blurry vision into a twist of chrome, the gloss of moisture cast in blue. She stumbled, reached, felt hands seize across rubbery limbs that slipped away, filled her mind with clicking even as she fought with them, felt them beat across her face like a barrage of sharp, angry slaps. Somewhere in the panic, in the berserker rage that boiled hot and scarlet through her mind, she screamed, ripped at the Cygnan with a howl so feral, so animal that it seemed to come from somewhere else. The stunner was gone, knocked from her hands as the beast tried to fight her off, to disentangle her from its body and throw her against the nearest wall, an easier target to skewer with another hail of chrome shards.
In the haze, she heard someone shout her name, felt through some fragment of touch and desperation a clear pattern of thought as the Cygnan divided its attention suddenly– and then there was a hand darting through sapphire limbs for her, grabbing, hooking her into the curve of an arm that was as unyielding as hardened steel. In one brutal instant, she was ripped loose from the Cygnan and thrown to the deck, a dark shape rising up over her, covering her as something exploded nearby, pelted them with quivering, burning blue ichor.
“Murphy!” The shape pinning her to the floor shouted in her ear, jerking upward and away at an angle, still holding her but opening up enough of her vision to show her the twitching, spasmodic mass of the blueskin, the way it deflated like a balloon, blue fluid boiling viscously out of trembling flesh. She felt the last, desperate vibrations of its death throes as it collapsed in the corridor, half its limbs gone, spread across wall like a splatter of sapphire. Mirrorchrome orbs shivered as the creature died, hung hesitating, then quickly dropped to the floor, splattering like rotten fruit as they hit. “Jesus.” The voice said, quieter, and then the shape turned back– a face, eyes, color like dark amber. A name popped into her brain, gave voice to itself. Dimitrov.
“You okay?” He asked, staring down at her, meeting her eyes as he covered her, lay above her, on her. She swallowed reflexively, looked away, felt the panic sweep up like a tide within her again.
“Izzy.” She sputtered, struggled to crawl out from under him, clawing the floor and dragging herself away even before Dimitrov could unpin her, could push back onto his haunches and watch her as she scrambled away. “I’ve–” She swallowed, shouted. “IZZY!”
“It’s dead.” Murphy managed, and even as Tessa stumbled forward, eyes leading her past and through pools where sticky chrome mingled with jellied blue, the words nested and stung in her heart. She slowed unconsciously as she neared the mangled blue corpse, the limbs stretched out, hiding the pale and bloodspattered cheeks, the red, yawning mouth, the blank and staring eyes of a body ripped open by vicious shards of hunting steel– still miraculously hovering on the edge of life.
“Izzy!” Tessa shouted, shooting to her side, ripping away sapphire limbs, stalling as she stared into that waxen face, the look of sheer terror frozen there like a mask of unmovable shock, as if it took every ounce of concentration Izzy could gather just to keep breathing, just to keep her damaged body from dying around her. Even as Tessa’s hand touched her cheek, hesitated and then gently cupped the blood-spackled flesh there, Izzy’s eyes stayed unwavering, unmoving, her body fighting an internal struggle for survival, drawing endless, quiet and gasping breaths. Tessa closed her eyes, covered them with one hand, fought against the burning, vicious tears as they came, sucked in the broken edges of a shocked and wet, shaky breath. “No...” She choked. “Oh god, no.” Teeth came clear, bared as pain ripped through her, tore a fissure in her soul. “No...”
“Tess-a.” Izzy panted, eyes staring deep into unseeable sky. “I–”
“Baby...” Tessa leaned in, quickly brushed the tears from her reddening eyes, reached out and brushed a loose strand of chestnut hair out of Izzy’s face. “Shhh, baby. I’m here.”
“I–” Izzy’s eyes flicked suddenly to the side, met Tessa’s and locked, wide and terrified, lit with the intensity of the last bright flash of a dying light. For one terrible instant, she stopped breathing, as if in that instant of lapsed concentration she had lost hold of the thread of life and didn’t have the strength to recapture it. Tessa’s own breath held, frightened, unable, unwilling to release– and then Izzy’s hand found hers, settled gently across it where it held her cooling cheek. Lips moved, whispered the edge of an exhale, and then Izzy took her last breath, spent it in the best way her fading mind could manage.
“I’ll... m-miss you.”
“No.” Tessa shook her head, took Izzy’s clammy hand in her own, squeezed it desperately. “No, Izzy. No, no.” She looked up, found Dimitrov’s amber eyes, the frightened, stunned eyes of Murphy. Her voice faltered as she stared desperately at them, fumbled speech, words spilling across stumbling lips. “I– we– Dammit!” She spun back, eyes fixing immediately on Izzy’s sightless gaze, searching her pale face for some shred of life, desperately struggling to find some fragment of something that would prove this was all just some terrible, terrible dream. Izzy’s eyes stared back, cold and frozen, empty, lifeless. New tears broke from Tessa’s eyes, poured freely, rivers of pain that traced thick paths down her cheeks, pooled and dripped from the line of her chin. One by one, they splashed against Izzy’s tattered uniform, mixed with hardening blood, gave it some passing semblance of new life that her body was denied. Tessa squeezed her eyes against the spread of the pain, bared teeth again as the hurt ate into her soul, consumed her. It was all she could do not to throw her head back and scream, and even as the urge built in her, tore at her, obliterated all thought and course of action, she pitched forward, buried herself into Izzy’s perforated chest and howled against the ragged wounds, breathed all her fury, all her anguish and pain into the wet fabric there. In that instant, nothing else mattered– there was only the pain, the anguish of loss and the unbearable need to release it.
Izzy... oh god, Izzy.
