"Do you have enough strength to prep us for takeoff?" The Gunner asks as they reach the rows of Conglomerate landspeeders. Long lines of craft gleam in the light, each a miniature of the ship they crashed on, covered, but with limited capabilities, making them ideal for skimming over terrain but not for atmospheric or orbital battle.
The Double tries to hike herself up higher on the Gunner's shoulder to see the crafts before a wet hacking cough racks out of her, forcing the Gunner to stop her brisk pace and brace the wounded woman as she braces nearly double. The Recruit hovers helplessly but keeps his eyes and pistol up to cover them. Carefully the Gunner probes the Double's sides. "Muckrudders," the bigger woman swears. "I think one of your fractured ribs may have punctured a lung." The Double coughs again and tears stream down her face in pain.
"Get me...," the Double wheezes. "Get me... to a cockpit-t-t." She is starting to shiver violently, shock finally registering to her body. "S-strap me...in... I'll... start us... up." Her breathing is growing more labored by the moment and the Gunner fears if they don't let her rest soon they'll lose her.
"Okay," The Gunner manages simply. "I'm going to carry you, you need to save your energy. Stay awake." She instructs and the Recruit is surprised to hear the Gunner say the Double's name, the river of worry in her voice a rushing rapid's worth of emotion.
The Gunner scoops the Double up in her arms and hustles the Recruit with her over to the speeders, selecting one with full fuel tanks and an aft gun turret. They hurry up the gangway and gently settle the Double into the co-pilot's chair, doing their best to pad her injuries with jackets before tightening down the seat restraints to put pressure on wounds and mitigate any jostling. The Double looks half dazed as they do so, allowing them to move and arrange her limbs as they wish. It is the placidity that scares them both the most although neither of them voices any fear aloud.
"Go and find oxygen masks," The Gunner instructs the Recruit as she disables the vehicle's tracker and tears open a roll of adhesive field sutures with her teeth and applies them to the weeping, reopened laceration on the Double's forearm. "I'll patch her up as best as I can with what we took from the medbay. If she does have a collapsed lung, we can provide oxygen to her good one for the time being." The Recruit nods and hurries to ransack the speeder's supplies.
"Hey," the Gunner says, using two fingers to tip the Double's lolling head up. "Eyes up. The Senator would be appalled by your posture right now," she tells the Double as she applies a compression wrap to the Double's torso.
The Double tries to smile, a grimace winning in the end. "True," she manages to rasp. Even that word seems to greatly tax her. "You're.... Bossy." She slurs a bit but the light in her eyes is still there, dim, but there.
The Gunner gives her a rare smile. She guides the Double's hands to the console and is almost relieved to see the Double's piloting skills instantly return. The woman's hands are riddled with small cuts and battered from fighting but they find each control nonetheless with pinpoint accuracy. The Recruit comes back with an oxygen mask they strap onto the Double's face. It only underscores her fragility and they have no way to drain any excess air from her abdominal cavity but it will have to do.
The ship begins to hum to life under the Double's unerring fingers, her movements slow but sure. The Gunner turns aft to prime the guns.
The Spy is sprinting towards them, a pistol in one hand, his face a rictus of vengeance.
The Recruit follows her gaze just in time for the Spy to pull into range and fire. The Gunner and the Recruit both dodge behind bulkheads and draw their own weapons. Because of the small size of the craft, the Spy can aim for any one of them or the controls and have a fair chance at disabling them, either from a direct hit or a ricochet. The next bolt flies into the ship, barely missing the Double, who can't change positions with her injuries.
Clearly, he has a specific target.
"Cover her!" The Gunner yells, flipping the switches to activate the gun turret. "Keep any Conglomerate goons off of us. I'll deal with him."
The Recruit nods, an expression just as fierce as the Spy's on his face. He takes two quick shots at the Spy, one which grazes the man's arm and draws a look of surprise. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments and the Recruit lets him know clearly and succinctly that he is no longer afraid of the Spy.
Then he is diving for the turret controls and the Gunner descends from the ship to face the Spy.
"So you didn't run after all," the Spy sneers at the Gunner. "Are you as hopelessly dedicated to your fake Senator as that sentimental little fool?"
"I've always disliked nationalist tash like you," the Gunner tells him. "You can't help your So-uan posturing."
He snarls and brings up his pulse pistol, but she lives up to her moniker and shoots the pistol clean out of his hand with her rifle. He pulls out his rapier, its orange light bristling to life and blocks her next shot straight out of the air. Three more bolts and she's out of ammunition and forced to draw a pair of pinpoint light blades, one in each hand, the telltale purple pulse of Ji'ambii power sources springing to life. The Spy's eyes narrow at the sight; he's unsure how well she's going to be able to handle those.
"Give up now," he tells her, his blade whipping out. She blocks it with both blades, slower than the Double but with strength that makes up the difference. "You're outnumbered and will be surrounded in moments."
Almost as if in response, the landspeeder's gun turret flashes yellow. The Spy turns in shock as the blasts decimate the Conglomerate soldiers coming to his aid, laying waste to an entire squadron before it's barely out of the main entrance. The Gunner gives him a grim grin. "Don't be so sure of that," she says, blades swinging at the Spy's torso. He slashes down to block and pirouettes away. "You did make him very angry after all."
The Spy narrows his eyes at the viewport of the gun turret. The Recruit stares back with an angry smile. The Spy bares his teeth at him, which, while a threatening promise, is also an unwilling admission that the Recruit has made his strength well known.
The Spy's rapier tangles with her pinpoint blades, one of the Gunner's blades on either side of his, trying to wrench his rapier out of his control. He shows her the same mastery that was on display with the Double but with none of restraint. He wanted to capture the Double; he will have no qualms about killing the Gunner.
Luckily, she's also unhampered by sentiment.
The Spy wicks the blade at her, its tip reaching dangerously close to her cheek before she sidesteps. She rotates her fist, catching him in the lower ribs with her knuckles before his own feline twist has him circling away from her. She tries to follow up with an overhand strike, the blades held in a reverse grip, but his lateral block sends her blades skittering down the rapier's length, multicolored sparks flashing. The both periodically pause to glance at the Conglomerate reinforcements but the Recruit is living up to that ferocity he showed them in his eyes and keeping the Conglomerate back. The Spy is getting desperate with the knowledge that escape is a true possibility if he does not stop the Gunner here and now.
The Gunner and the Spy's battle has echoes of his fight with the Double, but the timbre of the fight is different. With the Double there was resignation misinterpreted as desperation but with the Gunner there is desperation masked as nobility and righteousness. The odds are against her making it out with her companions but she is so resolute that it is goading the Spy into mistakes. They're evenly matched as well, her with her strength and double-handed attacks, he with his speed and intensive training, both mired deep in the race conflicts of their world even as invaders threaten to enslave them all.
"You'll never make it to safety," he tells her, striping her calf with his rapier, crimson blossoming bright. "Even if you manage to get airborne, you'll never outrun a Conglomerate pursuit flotilla."
She manages to prick his hand with her blade. "But if we get airbones," she says silkily despite her heaving breaths, "I doubt they'll let you live long after your failure."
He snarls with his rapier, the flexible blade seeming to bend through space. She barely blocks; there was more strength behind that blow.
"I hear Conglomerate executions aren't painless," she whispers venomously when they next tangle blades. "Do you think it would be messy compared to a Ji'ambii honor duel?"
She pays for that viper's strike. He abandons caution as fear takes hold. The sparks on his blade burn holes over her ribs, shredding the fabric and exposing the armor-plated vest underneath. But even as his eyes light with triumph at the strike, she uses her proximity to smash the hilt of one blade into the join at his neck and shoulder. He collapses hard, eyes wide. He looks up at her, and she looks down at him and they both know how this ends.
But then she hears her name screamed desperately. The Recruit's terrified face, the gun turret jammed, the Conglomerate closing in and the slumped silhouette of a queen dying on her throne. "Muck rudders," she curses. She kicks the Spy hard in the chest and runs.
A Ji'ambii warrior does not leave a battle but knows when to run if she has to. She was always told she was too rash and reckless which is why she was on this mission instead of with her tribe. She grits her teeth against the bloodthirsty urge to go back and finish him off. She promised her elders this would be the task she completes, the mission that will redeem her.
She hits the ramp at a sprint, diving for the launch sequence. The Double has done her job, gotten them prepped and ready. She shoves the engine ignition lever down and there is a responding whine and thrum as the solar panels withdraw and the turbines open wide. The Gunner screams the Recruit's name. He skids to her side, hair wild.
"Get us airborne!" she yells at him. "I'll fix the turret so we have a fighting chance."
He doesn't protest that he doesn't know how to fly but it's there in his eyes. "Just off the ground," she says. "Then forward. Just give me enough time to give us cover."
He nods and she sprints, big quad muscles chorusing in protest that she ignores. She finds the problem within seconds, sets the loading system to cycle through a reboot and restocks the power banks before running full tilt back to the bridge. She grabs the Recruit's pistol, slick in her sweaty hands, the metal warm.
She screams wordlessly in surprise when she hits the bridge, which is probably what saves the Recruit's life.
His training kicks in and he drops, the bolt from the Spy's recovered pulse pistol finding not his back, but the viewport, shattering the silica in a spray that hails down on all of them.
The Spy is the only one not unbalanced by his presence and there is a kind of hungry madness on his face as he pushes his pistol against the Double's temple, eyes locking with the Gunner's. "You were right," he says with a choked, hysterical, begrudging laugh. "I'm dead if I don't bring her back."
The Recruit is slowly getting up, silica shards in his hair. He looks to the Gunner and a prey instinct inside him freezes his limbs at what he sees in her expression.
The detachment is now gone, a combustion reaction imminent but the Spy cannot see it. The Double is weak with fatigue, her head lolling, her neck wineglass team fragile. She is trying to swim to full consciousness but it seems even she has reached an ultimate physical and mental limit. So it is the Recruit alone that watches the Gunner sublimate.
"Enough," the Gunner growls, the sound like a leve'eli cat's warning hiss mixed with a profoundo echo in a cave.
"Oh, now you show interest?" the Spy sneers, the muzzle of his pistol pushing into the Double's temple; the Recruit's stomach plummets into an even deeper icy ocean at the casual way the Spy plays with her life. "You've just followed along like a good little Ji'ambii pet, and now–,"
The Gunner shoots him in the knee.
Already weakened from his fight with the Double before she was captured, the last ligaments shred in the Spy's knee, He howls in pain, so shocked he drops the Double. "Catch her!" The Gunner roars at the Recruit who jolts from his stupefaction to grab the Double around her shoulders before she hits the ground. She is a nonresponsive weight in his arms and he lowers her to the ground, propped up against the cockpit door.
The Gunner coolly glares at the Spy.
When he finally finds the breath to speak, it's ugly and repulsive as the twisted flesh at his knee. He tightens his grip on his pistol, raising it. "You bitch–," he yowls at the Gunner.
She shoots him clean through the hand.
The Spy's pistol clatters to the ground and the Recruit has the sense left to kick it away. The Spy looks like he's gone into shock, staring at the cleanly cauterized pulse hole through his palm, his throat choking and catching on the pain of two rapid, successive injuries. The Gunner strides forward, her own pistol trained on the middle of the Spy's forehead, something that was hard and earthen now a raging magma in her eyes.
Her boot flashes out, kicking the Spy in the chest, sending him sprawling prone on the slick floor. "Now, listen well," The Gunner says, the Spy's incredulous eyes on this viper he has antagonized from decades of slumber. "I've had enough of your traitorous, pompous degradation of my people and our world. You have tortured and killed to be here, but you go no further unless I say so." Her berylzilium gaze is serrated, wicked with the glint on a rifle barrel.
She hauls him up by the front of his shirt and he gives a mewling, blubbering cry. She drags him over to the cargo bay, slamming the back of her hand against the door console to open the small space. "Bring me those spare cables," The Gunner gruffly commands and the Recruit scrambles to obey. The Spy is a flopping sea creature in her hands, his protest garbled as if underwater, weak with the suddenness of his demise. The Gunner roughly wraps his wrists behind him in the cable, then shoves him to the ground and does the same to his ankles. He seems to come around just as she throws him bodily into the cargo space and slams the door shut. His screaming vitriol is muted by the door.
The Gunner blows out a long, slow breath, running her hand through her hair. She turns to the Recruit who is looking at her with eyes the size of moons.
"Now, we run," The Gunner says.