The One

"Why didn’t you run?" she asked.

He watched from the corner of his eye, unsure how to gauge her actions yet unwilling to refuse her help.

"Running seemed more dangerous," he said as she reached for the large pistol wedged in his belt.

She nodded. "How does it work?" she pulled out the gun and looked it over. The question struck him as odd. "Never mind," she said, then, "I’ve got it." Her accent was also strange. Next she undid his belt, tying it around her waist. She snugged the pistol in it and moved over to the nearby bulkhead.

Ian gathered his thoughts. Still no more commentary or action from within the alien corridor. He stole a full glance at her, at Tarisha, as she scaled the wall to a higher ledge, finding footholds along the broken surface of the interior. A second later she was side-stepping along the thin ledge, barely on it, moving over the top of the hatch toward the other side.

"Button up the hatch!" the Wyvulsk commander raged over his lieutenant’s helmet radio. "We’ll take off and close up!"

The lieutenant stood now in the open corridor, not daring to risk a one-on-one with the impressively skilled humans outside. "The girl’s an EA with the Regulars. She’d have it open again before we could do a thing." He was in charge of their troop contingent – their four dead troops – and was trying to reason a better approach. It had been confirmed that the girl did not fall away from the ship, and was therefore probably alive. Which made two humans against four of them. And if she was now also armed, then she was also dangerous.

The commander was furious. "I will not accept more losses! No more confrontations! Do you understand?!"

The lieutenant couldn’t agree. At the moment the two humans were in a blind area, plotting how they would advance on the corridor in the next moments. There was no time and no strategy for anything but a confrontation. It was pointless to debate the confusion that had ensued at the death of Kyiigra, the delay in destroying the car, then the decision to use the girl and try to capture the intruder after all, even after he had killed two more on his approach. One by one they had pissed away their options, and now they had lost control.

"Send down Kebej," he said. The commander began to refuse and it was the lieutenant’s turn to yell. "Send him down! Or we’ll never get out of this!"

Now Tarisha was directly above the door. Facing the wall she pulled the gun with her left hand, the pistol large in her grip, held a cable against the wall with her right, leaned back, twisted at the waist and aimed down at the opening.

For a long moment she remained still. Then, as if to signal something, extended her trigger finger and one other briefly. Ian took it to mean two aliens in the corridor. Perhaps she heard them.

He listened, but his only indication of their approach was her pulling close to the wall, extending the pistol directly down. Just as she did...

Two of the massive aliens leaned around the frame, one firing in Ian’s direction, the other across to the other side, evidently assuming the girl might have been there. The energy bursts of their rifles were loud, but not loud enough to cover the contained fury of the pistol in the enclosed housing as Tarisha hammered them from above. Seven shots drove both attackers to the floor. Ian got a hit on the nearest, but it probably wasn’t necessary. The girl had killed them both.

Jumping to the side she hit the metal deck surprisingly light, stood and stepped flush against the wall beside the hatch. The pistol slide was locked to the rear; she ejected the empty magazine and extended a hand for another.

"This is the last," Ian stood and stepped over behind her, passing it on. He held his rifle at the ready.

Inserting the new magazine, she snapped the slide forward and stepped to the edge of the door. With a quick look she assessed the corridor and turned back to face him.

"There’s only two left," she said. "The commander and pilot."

Ian nodded. Six were dead already, two more seemed like a challenge they could meet. But the knowledge in her comments concerned him far more than the specifics. Her familiarity with the situation seemed wrong.

"It’s about...fifteen feet to the first interior hatch. We’re wide open until then. They see into the ultraviolet, so the lighting is too high to do us much good. I can turn down the lights, but the switch is beyond the hatch. Until then we’ll have to go on ambient light from the door here. Stay close and cover high."

At that she stepped around the edge, pistol in both hands at arms length. Ian was taken by the suddenness of her movement, still unsettled by how much she appeared to know. Moving quickly to make up his lag he followed her into the darkness, rifle high and at the ready...