His helmet would be enshrined upon the altar for several days before being placed on one of the many shelves in the temple. The chamber had no name beyond simply being referred to as the temple. The contents were what gave it gravity, not the name placed upon it. The many shelves were packed with helmets, some of them badly damaged and others less so, all of them etched with the skull face of the departed bearer, a shrine to death, but also a monument to life. Every Dire Sword casualty since the founding of the company had a helmet on display.
Even those who were lost entirely had fresh helmets created to hold their place in the temple. This was the eventual destination for all who took up arms with the company, serving as both a source of fierce pride and a callous reminder of the doom that awaited them all.
Jada was comforted by the empty stares coming from the helmets, the hollow eye sockets of the skull etchings seeming to follow her no matter where in the temple she stood. Others had come to pay their respects, various support staff and warriors filing in and out of the temple. She stood alone for a moment, watching Strega reach out with her bare hand and place it upon the helmet as she whispered something. She then left the temple and Jada could not help but follow her with a gaze, noticing how Strega looked rather emotional when touching the helmet, but was as expressionless as ever when she walked out.
Ranec, who had been standing silently on the far side of the temple, met Jada’s eyes as the woman looked back towards the helmet. There was heat in his troubled gaze and Jada was stirred by a sudden animal need.
The warrior, apparently noticing her reaction to his silent statement of desire, walked across the temple towards her. The merc said nothing as Ranec came nearer, his approach slowing the closer he got to her, until he came to a stop only inches away from her. He stood just to the left of her center, leaving her plenty of room to maneuver around and past him should she choose. Jada held his gaze and stepped towards him, closing the distance between them as she put a hand on his chest and pressed her hip into his.
Shortly afterwards, in the privacy of her chamber, Jada ran her hands down his muscled and badly scarred chest, tracing the lines of past injuries with her fingers and marveling at the scale of damage that Ranec had survived in his long and violent life.
His body was slick with the sweat of their exertions, the two of them having wasted little time in undressing and taking one another in arms once the door slid shut.
The man was an enigma. His recklessness on the battlefield ran counter to the delicate way he made love to the newest Dire Sword. From the way he fought, she’d have expected him to embrace her roughly, the way most soldiers did things, herself included. Not so with the otherwise savage warrior, who thrust himself into her with a deep and abiding power, his massive frame above her feeling more like he was shielding her from the outside world than he was towering over a lover.
The merc moved her hand up the ridge of hard tissue that marked where the Gedra cyborg had torn Ranec open before Jada moved in to rescue the man. Thanks to the gene therapy, only the most grievous of wounds left scars and Jada wondered how many of the ones she caressed had been carved into his flesh before he was transformed.
Ranec appeared to be experiencing the same musings. The warrior tightened his grip upon her and rolled them over on the bed. Jada looked down at the man as he thrust upwards, taking note of how he traced the ravages that a lifetime of violence had left upon her. His hands slid up her waist and found the ragged scar upon her chest, where she’d taken a bullet during a boarding action years ago, the long surgical scar that bisected the circular wound where the Grotto medicae had inserted the Augur lung that had kept her at peak fighting condition. Her remaining organic lung, now enhanced by the gene therapy, performed just as well, if not better, than the Augur organ, a testament to the power of the serum and the resilience of her body to cope with such continuous trauma.
Ranec’s hand went from her chest to the ring that dangled from her throat, and as his fingertips brushed against it, the two lovers locked eyes. They held each other’s gaze silently for a moment, him questioning and her answering, an understanding passing between them that not all scars were cut into flesh.
Ranec thrust upwards, wrapping his arm around Jada’s waist so that he could sit up. The merc wrapped her legs around his waist and they were brought face to face by their position. They held the pose, grinding their hips together as they shared the same breath, their lips never quite touching as the two soldiers lost themselves in the moment.
Jada had tried to let go of George Tuck, a fellow Reaper who had died down in the darkness of Vorhold some years ago, attempting a number of times over the years to forget him in the sweaty embrace of another. The specter of him yet remained and she knew that it was she who held tightly to him.
Somehow, Ranec was giving himself to her, without armor or reservation, but Jada could not manage the same. Whatever post-traumatic burdens the Dire Sword carried, Jada could tell that he had found a way to set them aside for the time being. Perhaps it was the sex that enabled him to let go of his past, to experience a few passionate moments of raw humanity before returning to the armor.
For most of the mercs aboard Sword Base, it was only in the fury of battle that they found such respite, and yet, with Mors gone, she knew that everyone was on edge. Likely there were plenty of mercs who paired off after leaving the temple, either with each other or one of the support staff. Not unlike Ranec and Jada, they needed to feel alive, and without a fight waiting for them, many of the haunted warriors turned to sex. It wasn’t like any of them could get drunk anymore. Their advanced physiology made it all but impossible to imbibe enough alcohol to overpower their body’s ability to process the liquor.
Jada remembered how George had always enjoyed getting a few drinks in them and grappling in a dark corner of the barracks.
Instantly, her physical bliss turned to something else.
She had left the pits of Vorhold a half-person, a sad and wounded thing, and in a way, she was ashamed to have survived when so many others had not. George had made it out; he could have left her there and reached the sunlight alive, but instead had gone back into the darkness to save her and take her place in death.
Jada would have insisted that he let her go, that after even her brief captivity at the twisted hands of the Stalkers, she would rather have died in that bitter place. George had robbed her of that choice, he and Boss Marsters, and even the ganger Vol.
Suddenly, Jada was furious that it was she who yet clung to life. Having Ranec inside her was a frustratingly pleasurable and forceful reminder that she not only lived, but was thriving as a grim bringer of destruction to any unfortunate enough to be on the other end of her weapons.
Ranec’s firm, but gentle, lovemaking suddenly annoyed her, as if he was wasting the power in his enhanced body, holding back when he should be pushing her and himself to the edge of exertion. They were meta-humans capable of feats beyond the natural capacity of humanity and they were both holding back. What was the point of all the suffering they’d endured up to this point if they did not go all the way? Jada found herself enraged.
She snarled and twisted her body, using her arms to shove Ranec onto his back, squeezing her thighs together, holding him inside her while the pressure of her legs kept him from being able to draw a full breath.
Ranec let go of her and she pinned his arms against the bed, all the while grinding her hips into his. The Dire Sword was impossibly strong, and he pushed up against her, both with his sex and his arms, even as Jada thrust back against him with hips and hands.
They were opposites in that way, Jada realized. Ranec was a bravo in combat, but more poet than beast in his sexuality, while Jada was a warrior of cold efficiency and now a ferocious creature who tore at his flesh even as she coupled with him.