Izzy grinned, popped the clasp on her holster. “You with me?”

In the darkness of the silver-mottled corridor, Tessa’s eyes shot for Izzy’s, locked with a stare that snared and bored back into hers, filled her with a fiery strength that seemed to cross the distance between them, kindling her resolve, burning away the fears, the nagging uncertainties. In the pause, Tessa gave her a quick nod, just the sharp edge of a movement that conveyed complete understanding and complete agreement. Fingers wrapped solidly around the grips of handguns, minds rattling quick through specs at the touch, facts drilled into minds years ago. Solomon Mark VII Compressed Energy Stunner. Effective stun zone, thirty feet. Effective kill zone, ten inches or less, major organ failure. Izzy swallowed as Tessa’s eyes shot to the Cygnan, but the resolve was there, her heart set. Izzy’s Stunner came free almost at the same instant Tessa’s did, and as they both pushed off, rocketed up from crouched positions into adrenaline-fueled charges, one thought passed between them, crossed the impossible distance of air and absence of touch to burn brightly in open, terrified minds.

The instant Izzy’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, and then something hit her, crashed into her, knocked her shot wild and carried her to the ground with all the force of a concrete wall. There was no time to react, no time to think– 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 Izzy died the instant she saw the shards dart for Tessa, the instant she saw that phalanx of bladed steel separate, half of it splattering harmlessly in midair as it reached for her, half plunging hard for the woman she loved, each spike unwavering and cruel. She cried out, shouted, screamed, but the weight held her, pinned her. More steel leapt into the air, and then it was the Cygnan that was screaming, its cries drowning out the sound of Tessa’s agony as blood blossomed into the corridor, mixed crimson and blue, splashed the Cygnan, reached as far as Izzy and the shape that was covering her, holding her.

And then the vision came, the voice, the sudden touch of life and passion and fear and relief that overwhelmed her senses and terrified her to the point of madness. There was something of Tessa in that touch, that rush of sensation, thought, and emotion, but it couldn’t have been, couldn’t– she recoiled in fear, fought with the shape, struggled to throw it off, but still it held her, still it reached into her mind, filled her with its thoughts.

Its okay, Izzy. She heard Tessa’s voice, the familiar tones reaching into her mind, playing impossibly across her senses. Shhh, baby. Relax. It’s okay. It’s okay now.

“Get off me!” Izzy shouted, and in one sudden blast of adrenaline, she dislodged the shape that had pinned her and rushed to Tessa’s side, reached for her lover’s hand, gently cupped one blood-spattered cheek.

“Jesus, Tessa.” She tried, hesitated, unsure of what to do. Tessa’s eyes stared on, unwavering, unmoving, her body fighting an internal struggle for survival, drawing endless, quiet, gasping breaths. Izzy closed her eyes reflexively, covered them with one hand, fought against the burning, vicious tears as they came, sucked in on the broken edges of a shocked and wet, shaky breath. “No...” She choked. “Oh. . . oh god, no.” Teeth came clear, bared as pain ripped through her, tore a fissure in her soul. “No...”

Strong hands came to a gentle rest on her back as Tessa tried to speak, panted words past lips speckled with crimson. “Iz- zy, I–”

“Baby...” Izzy leaned in, quickly brushed the tears from her reddening eyes, reached out and moved a loose strand of obsidian hair out of Tessa’s face. “Shhh, baby. I’m here.”

“I–” Tessa’s eyes flicked suddenly to the side, met Izzy’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. Izzy’s own breath held, frightened, unable, unwilling to release– and then the shape behind her gently shifted her away, dropped into a crouch beside her.

“I can stop this.” The shape said, and at the sound of the voice, Izzy started, turned and stared open mouthed at what was an impossibility, what had to be a hallucination, what couldn’t have been real. “I can stop the round before it does any more damage.”

“You. . .” Izzy shook her head, watched as the shape, the woman who had saved her life, the one who was and yet couldn’t be, moved her hands over the dying Tessa’s chest and caught each tiny slug of living steel as they crawled out of wounds one by one, lifting as if drawn by a magnet. Like liquid, they rose in rivulets and coalesced together in the center of her hand, drawing themselves up into a sphere of swirling chrome that hung suspended, ominous.

And then Izzy looked up, caught the eyes of the woman, and for a moment, she seemed to understand, seemed to grasp just enough of what had to be the terrifying truth to understand. The other woman smiled softly and Izzy’s mouth dropped open. None of the changes mattered, the extra years, the butchered hair– it was clear who the woman was, who she couldn’t be.

“Who are you?” Izzy managed.

“Ultima Thila.” The older Tessa smiled, tossed the ball of chrome lightly over to her. “That’s all you need to know.”

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