‘Then you won’t mind if I have a look.’
Scab stood up and made as if to move past Fallen Angel. The Elite took Scab by the shoulder. Fallen Angel held him lightly but Scab could feel the power in the fingers. It was magnitudes above what Vic could have managed with his high-end, hard-tech augments, impressive for what was primarily soft tech. On the other hand, there had to be a price for laying a hand on Scab.
A flat palm to Fallen Angel’s wrist to knock the arm away. That almost contacted. The Elite made the moving of his arm out of the way look languid. Fallen Angel allowed the roundhouse kick to land, taking the meaningless impact on the shoulder. With Scab’s ability and soft-machine augments, he knew that the kick had more than enough power to powder bone in someone as highly augmented as he himself was. He was reasonably sure that Fallen Angel hadn’t even felt it.
Fallen Angel raised his knee level with his chin and then straightened his leg. The impact broke ribs. Scab spat blood in mid-air as the kick tore him off his feet and sent him flying backwards. He landed hard on the black marble. The noise of their violence seemed obscene in the otherwise quiet chamber.
Scab rolled back into his animalistic crouch and bared his teeth. Fallen Angel watched him, his expression a mix of curiosity and confusion. Scab ran at him, launching himself into the air, knees forward. It was an easy thing for Fallen Angel to roll under the blow.
Scab had known this. He channelled every bit of hatred, every bit of anger at being in a situation where he was so horribly outmatched, where cunning and ultraviolence would not see him through, where he wasn’t in control. The Scorpion, ancient and vile, responded.
The sting drew a long thin line of black just under Fallen Angel’s eye. This was extraordinary in itself. More extraordinary was the ancient venom in the sting actually giving the Elite’s internal antivirals a moment of trouble.
Scab landed, scampered across the floor like an animal, using one hand for support, and turned to face Fallen Angel again. The Elite touched his face and then held his black-covered fingertips in front of his eyes. The exotic matter looked like liquid as it was sucked back through his skin.
Fallen Angel was starting to look angry. He glanced at the Scorpion dug into the flesh on Scab’s left arm and hissed at it, eyes blazing. Scab actually screamed as the S-tech weapon burrowed under his skin, hiding itself completely in his flesh, brass-like living metal wrapping itself around his bones. He had to force himself to ignore the fear radiating from the Scorpion.
Fallen Angel strode towards him. Scab had to put every inch of effort into trying not to get hit. Years of experience, street fighting on Cyst, the planet that most embraced the creed of the cult of Darwin in Consortium space, every dirty trick he’d learned in the penal battalions of the Legion on countless CR worlds and what he could remember of the Elite dances. It wasn’t enough. It was a one-sided and short fight. It was like Fallen Angel was dancing with him in his sleep.
He spoke to Scab as he committed violence on him. The Elite threw a punch to his stomach that lifted Scab off his feet. For an absurd moment Scab felt that his opponent was wearing him like a glove.
‘You did not infiltrate.’
A casual axe kick fractured his skull despite it being seeded with armoured super-hardened ceramic and drove him to the marble floor again. All happening faster than the unaugmented would even be able to see.
‘We may as well have invited you.’
Picked up by the back of his neck and flung against the marble wall. Air forced out of him, replenished immediately by his internal systems, more broken ribs despite the carbon lacing. Fortunately his spine remained intact, though Scab suspected that this was calculation on Fallen Angel’s part to prolong the lesson.
‘You saw nothing of import.’
Lifted up off the ground by his skull. Both of Fallen Angel’s hands, with their long powerful fingers, were wrapped around it.
‘I can see the little god in your eyes. Remember that you did not do this; you are only a vehicle.’ Fallen Angel pushed his fingers into the alien eyes in Scab’s forehead and squeezed. Scab screamed in a way that would shame him when he thought back to it. It was a humiliation in a life largely free of them. The ancient eyes became a sticky mess on the end of Fallen Angel’s fingers.
‘The Consortium has tipped its hand. Now we know they know where we are. They should have sent their Elite instead of this ghost. We’ll move. You’re just here to learn what it’s like to be helpless.’
Now, Scab thought. It was a coherent energy field weapon, a rod, more commonly known as an energy javelin. It was ancient S-tech and, like the Scorpion, completely illegal. It lived in a hidden sheath in Scab’s right arm. He killed with it only on special occasions. A momentary white and orange glow in the flesh as his neunonics sent the order, his hand swinging towards Fallen Angel. The mortal who killed a god. Maybe.
The time between thinking the order, the movement, the glow of the energy field initiating was so small as to be difficult to measure. It was enough. Fallen Angel grabbed Scab’s arm at the wrist and squeezed, crushing the sheath. Trapping the energy javelin, which started to cut and burn its way through Scab’s flesh. More screaming as flesh smoked and the smell of burning meat filled the air.
‘That might have actually hurt me,’ Fallen Angel said quietly, sounding calmer now. Scab’s right hand fell off, his wrist still glowing as the meat around it cooked. ‘But you’re not really there again, are you.’
Scab felt sick. Different, somehow less with the eyes gone. He was aware of his wounds, the holes in his skull.
‘Will you let him go for me?’ asked a female voice every bit as beautiful, resonant and sad as Fallen Angel’s. Scab managed to look up from the floor. His nano-screen was all but screaming warnings in his neunonics, his defences were being overrun. Elites fought at all levels of conflict.
Scab felt absurdly gratified that after dropping him, Fallen Angel had shown enough respect to take a few steps away, out of easy striking distance.
She was a female version of Fallen Angeclass="underline" same black hair, a feminised version of the same build with small pale breasts, same eyes. Tall, slender to the point of fragile while still conveying power. Scab recognised her: she was the third monarchist Elite. She was called Horrible Angel and was said to be Fallen Angel’s sister.
Uncaring of Scab, she took her brother’s head and kissed him long and deep.
‘You know who he is?’ she asked when they had finished.
‘Another ghost of someone I killed who has followed me into the underworld. He’ll seek revenge but in the end just follow me with empty eye sockets and a tongueless mouth. Silent and accusing.’
Clearly to Fallen Angel it was all about him, Scab thought. The idea almost made him smile. He was going to die fighting Elite. He had cut one, and given him pause with the energy javelin. Impossible feats for many. Scab wasn’t sure if it was enough. If he could die now… No. He remembered the deal he had made. This way it would not end.
‘No,’ Horrible Angel said. ‘This is Woodbine Scab, bounty killer extraordinaire and ex-Elite. One of us…’ Fallen Angel turned to look at him. Something had changed. It was as if he was regarding him in a new light as he wrapped his arms around Horrible Angel.
‘… now little more than a frightened animal,’ Fallen Angel said, finishing his sister’s sentence. ‘Why did they take your wings away?’
Horrible Angel turned to look at Scab as well. He had managed to back himself against the wall so he could sit up a bit. Trying to ignore his smoking wrist, he was tempted to tell them the truth. That he couldn’t remember. That the information was gone after they had mentally spayed him. It was, after all, very difficult to lie to Elite. They were trained and augmented to read people. They had to be able to predict the movements that any opponent made against them. Be it a single opponent in hand-to-hand or an entire Consortium navy battle group. Scab still had vestiges of the talent himself. He wished he had a cigarette.