Chapter Thirty-Nine: Extinction Burst

The wire bites in; a memory surfaces.

She is sixteen years old.

The final combat examination is tomorrow and she ought to be in quarters but she begged an extra hour before curfew from the matron; the training rooms aren't kept locked, as a rule, and she needs every minute of practice she can scrounge. If her mark isn't in the top five she may as well forget the advanced course next year and that means goodbye to any hope of an Intelligence traineeship, which is entirely unacceptable. She hasn't worked this hard to wind up stamping travel papers on some backwater planet, another factory-molded cog in the machine of the Diplomatic Corps. Father would be so- he'd be-

He'd be-

-angryashameddisappointedIraisedyoubetterthanthispathetic-

( oh, that hurts, oh, oh- a blank space in the memory and then it keeps going, like a stutter in an old recording-)

Not that ImpInt would be any less of a machine- she isn't so naive as that. This is the Empire, after all.

In any case, her favorite room at the end of the hall's empty. Setting the program to random- not nearly as good as a live partner but being out of quarters is bad enough, even with permission; any two of them caught together now after stupid Taima ratted out last weekend's party'd mean a week locked in at least- she squares off against the combat droid.

Half an hour and three-quarters of the way through the fifth training sequence later, sweat prickles on her back beneath her shirt as the door slides open behind her and chill air from the corridor wafts into the room.

"Matron Rossi gave me a pass," she pants between dodges, lifting her right arm to block and then counter the droid's swing. It must be one of the patrolling guards, she thinks- heavy steps behind her, booted soles scraping on the duracrete floor, not another cadet soft-footed in standard-issue trainers. Turning around now would be dangerous; whoever it is, they're disrupting the program. Rather rude. "But it's in my trouser pocket so you'll have to wait until the end of this sequence."

Two more steps, drawing nearer as she aims a punch at the center target- stupid guards, they never did listen worth a damn. Against her better judgment she turns her head to look and suddenly she can't breathe- something wraps around her throat, stiff and unyielding under her scrabbling fingers, tightening, tightening-

(It wasn't a wire, then. But she was only a child, really, still fighting training dummies and shooting practice guns at printed targets between arithmetic and elocution and Imperial history lessons. A strap, one would think, ought to have been enough.)

She can't cry out, she can't get her hands beneath it, she can't breathe, oh stars -

The room's going dark. Did the lights shut off? She can barely see the combat droid as it lurches forward to flank her, still working its way by rote through the program; it's going to catch her right in the teeth if she doesn't move but that's really not going to matter if she strangles first, which frankly seems more likely (what are you doing , stupid girl, think or you're going to die here, MOVE)-

- until she finally, finally remembers the lesson from three weeks ago's grappling practice and pivots toward him, throwing her weight sideways as hard as she possibly can.

The pressure eases on her throat just a little. Balling up one fist, she drives it hard into her attacker's groin. He- thank all the stars it's a he, that'd have been properly useless on a woman- flinches and she tries to snake her hand up the gap between his arm and body, searching for leverage. Whoever he is, he's got probably a quarter-meter of height and a few dozen kilograms of weight on her and she'll never be able to throw him over but if she can at least get him off-balance she might stand a chance. With the little breath she has she tries to scream; he claps a hand over her mouth and she bites down hard, wishing for pointed teeth like Nyssa's or Dzurai's because she only tastes leather and not blood and he's got both ends of the strap in one hand, now, twisting it roughly around her neck and pulling her down until she's bowed over-

She's been hit by the droid dozens of times in her training. She remembers the sound and the feel of it, a dense slap of metal on flesh hard enough to leave welts for days, and wonders why it doesn't hurt this time- she hears it strike home, that same awful thudding sound and then a crack, sharp, like dry kindling breaking underfoot. She should feel it. It should hurt. Why doesn't it hurt?

The strap slips away, sliding against her skin. The combat droid's tinny voice chirps accusingly, warning light flashing in the corner of her vision- SEQUENCE FAILED. She needs to run, needs to get away; she starts to stumble toward the door and trips over something underfoot, falling to her knees, crawling.

SEQUENCE FAILED.

Her hand comes down on the man's face. Frantic, she yanks it away but he doesn't stir, doesn't even move and-

SEQUENCE FAILED.

His eyes are open, vague and staring, his head twisted on his neck at an awful angle-

SEQUENCE FAILED.

(It was pure stupid luck how the droid had hit him, though her would-be assassin had had it coming: couldn't even kill a half-trained girl and he was stupid to boot, leaving the last message from Ellix's father- fucking Ellix, that lazy little shit, it wasn't her fault all his family's money couldn't buy him decent marks and that she'd thrashed him in the preliminaries last week- on the commpad in his pocket for security to find. But she'd never seen anyone die before. She'd never killed anyone before, even if indirectly, even if it was an accident and she was only trying to run.

He'd had it coming. She had let that thought soothe her in the moments when his face filled her dreams.)

She takes a deep breath in, and screams.

It isn't the first time Nine's had a garrote around her throat; it likely won't be the last. But she has two things in her favor that she didn't at sixteen.

Even as the wire cuts at her skin she can feel the attack angle's not quite right, meant to snare someone taller- as it is, it nearly hits her jawbone and bites into the soft flesh beneath her chin. On someone Theron's height- on Theron, it would have been Theron here if she hadn't intervened - it would have caught him just at the pulse-point, through to the carotids maybe even before he lost his breath. Their nasty little mole sprung his trap on the wrong person and it took him a few seconds too long to realize it, long enough for her to start to shift to counter him. Too bad for him.

The misjudged angle alone might have let her survive, even unarmed. But the second thing in her favor is that unlike all those years ago she's armed with more than her bare fists tonight and (all right, maybe it's three things in her favor) she gives precisely zero fucks about how badly she's about to make him hurt.

Fighting the reflexive urge to grab at the wire, she moves her right hand to her belt instead and draws her knife. It springs into her fingers, blade humming but inaudible beneath the scuff of boots on duracrete and her desperate ragged breaths; she reverses grip and drives it straight backward into her attacker.

(She hopes. If she misses she can strike again, of course, but even at a bad angle the wire's still making mincemeat of her throat and there's only so much time before- well. Best not to test whether Valkorion really does mean to keep her alive.)

If Theron's scars are anything close to par for the SIS course, its agents take twice as many beatings as she ever did in Imperial Intelligence. Whether that's down to bad luck or subpar training is a matter of debate, but all the thrashings in the galaxy still can't prepare one for a vibroknife to the groin and when her strike hits home- more in the thigh, really, she feels the blade bite through fabric and into muscle without the telltale skitter-scrape of metal on bone- she twists it hard.

It's enough. For a fraction of a second the wire pulls tauter and she smells blood before she feels it, trickling down into her collar, but then he lets go with one hand to push her away, to put some distance between himself and her knife. When the blade rips free he snarls, the first meaningful sound she's heard him make since she entered the room. He hadn't expected that, clearly. Theron too often only carried his blasters or at best a utility knife and it would have been a tricky shot; if he'd hesitated for even a moment-

Theron always tried to talk his way out of things. But it's hard to talk with an opened throat.

Her attacker- human or near it in this light, with the sort of face one could pass in the street and forget a moment later- starts to duck back behind the crates that had hidden him initially. As he moves out of sight she reaches for a kolto syringe, then thinks better of it. It would only take a few seconds and he won't be getting at her neck again but what else is he armed with? A few seconds might be long enough for her to find out the hard way.

The stack of crates casts a dark shadow in the flickering light. He's only a step or two ahead of her now, slowed by the wound, and she closes the distance with a leap and throws all her weight at his back. Grabbing with her free hand at his collar, she manages a fistful and holds tight to it, clinging fast to drag him down. He staggers and braces himself against a corner as she gets her blade arm up around his throat, then the other.

"Yield," Nine hisses in his ear. "Or-"

She barely hears the shot go off.

It misses, more or less; the bolt of energy only grazes her right thigh, a split second of heat and pain that she dismisses before the sound of it leaves her ears. He would have had to shoot through himself to hit her anywhere vital but still- now she's brought a blade to a gunfight and he appears to be going for or.

Oh, well. Too bad for him.

When she won't let go he turns instead, putting her squarely between his body and the crates behind, and her back slams against the corner with enough force to rattle her teeth once and then again and then again. Between blows she slashes at his side; his throat would be easier but she wants him to talk, not bleed to death on the storeroom floor. The blade skitters off something hard beneath his jacket, raising sparks within the shadows. Armor. This isn't going to-

She hits the crate a fourth time and it knocks the air out of her.

Oof. Change of plan, then.

He rocks forward once more. This time, though, she lets go and drops before he can pin her, tucking into a sideways roll that takes her just clear of his feet to the left as she throws her knife to the right. It clatters across the duracrete and with her weight suddenly gone he pauses, turning in the direction of the noise. (It's a little disappointing he fell for that one, really. Oldest trick in the book.) She flips on her stealth generator in one quick movement and by the time he looks back toward her she's gone.

"Stop fucking around, Cipher." His voice is softer than she would have expected and subtly hoarse. Unfamiliar, though clearly he knows her- or of her, at least. "Let's finish this."

A single larger storage box, perhaps two meters tall, sits further to her left amid the stacked-up piles. If she can get on top of it she'd have a better angle to get a shot off, or a dart-

"You're bleeding," he says, not moving; she takes a silent step toward the box and then another and another, glancing down at the ground around her feet. Maybe she ought to have used the kolto after all; the best stealth tech in the galaxy can't mask a blood trail. "You think you can hide?"

She's behind the box now. She reaches up, hands outstretched, gripping the lid. Keep talking, idiot. Keep talking.

Click-click-click, the sound of an augment screwed onto a blaster barrel. "Don't bother going for the door, by the way. Got it covered."

Oh, now he's just being insulting.

Slowly, carefully, silently- her belt clasp knocks slightly against the lip of the lid and she freezes in place, one foot atop the box, until she's certain he's not moving toward her- she pulls herself up and edges toward the far side. Where is he? She can't quite see him. Hiding up against something, maybe- his voice hadn't moved, but he could be projecting it or- shit, what if he's got stealth tech, too?

No. He hadn't been cloaked when he struck at her, she'd just been distracted. He's hiding, and probably telling the truth about a sightline on the exit: he thinks she's prey. He thinks she's wounded, bleeding, frightened. He thinks she's outmatched and trying to escape, to regroup and find allies to come back and finish the job.

(Cipher, Cipher, run away, live to fight another day. Valkorion's voice sing-songs in the back of her head. A pithy little rhyme. Isn't that what you were taught?

Nine grits her teeth. Shall I just let him lop my head off, old man? How long will your ghost last after I die?

Spirit, Valkorion murmurs. Spirit. But I can show you where-

Be silent, she says, and loads a sedative dart into the launcher on her wrist. I'm hunting.)

Crouched atop the box, she scans the room. Think like a 'pub- he expects her to break before he does. Where would she have holed up, were she him? No stealth and a leg injury- somewhere ground-level but with cover, a niche in the wall or a well-placed column-

There! The tip of a blued-out blaster pistol peeks out beyond the edge of a ration crate, reflecting just enough light to be visible from her perch as it tracks back and forth along the line of the exit door. Target located. Step one, complete. Now to step two- three quick hops ought to put her just above him but only if he doesn't get punchy at the first hint of a sound, and if he's already wiggling his fucking gun around like a stimmed-up infantry grunt she'd bet he's the punchy type.

She can think of a quick way to fix that, of course: can't get punchy if he can't hear. Hylo won't be happy with her, but to mangle the metaphor one can't make an omelet without breaking a few crates.

Sorry, Hylo.

She pulls a flashbang off her belt and yanks the pin with her teeth, holds the grenade clenched in her fist as she starts to count down the fuse. Five. Four. Three- she lofts the grenade and watches as it soars, landing a meter away and rolling toward the SIS agent's feet as he peeks out of cover at the noise - two - and she presses her hands firmly over her ears. One.

The moment the glare fades through her pressed-shut eyelids she's moving, launching from her perch to the next-nearest stack and then the next, knocked out of alignment by the shockwave and wobbling alarmingly, and then one last leap to just above where her opponent's now bent over and shaking his head back and forth like a half-stunned bantha. His bowed head creates a perfect target, a wide strip of skin exposed between hairline and collar.

She fires the dart into the back of his neck.

She waits.

He keeps moving for another six seconds (quicker-than-average metabolism; she makes a mental note) before his legs give way and his blaster falls from his limp fingers. Slumped against the crate, he slides down into a half-seated sprawl, head turning slowly from side to side as he squints into the dark.

"Where-?" He's slurring now. Good. "Gonna kill me now, Cipher? Too 'fraid to not hide?"

Switching off her generator, she jumps down to the floor beside him and kicks his blaster well out of reach. "Hardly afraid." She doubts he can even hear her after a flashbang practically to the face. "You're going to have a nice little nap, and then you and I-" he's nearly unconscious now- "need to have a little talk."

He heard that much, at least. Making a face, he grits his teeth and she hears something crack just as his eyes start to roll upward and one cheek starts to spasm.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Amateur.

"You're not getting out of this," she sighs, reaches into a belt pouch for the antitoxin injector she always keeps there, flips the cap back and jams it roughly into the man's neck, "nearly that easily. Sleep well, agent." His eyelids flicker, then drift fully shut; she slaps him hard- he deserves it, after all, for what he would have done to Theron and for her mangled throat; she's still bleeding where the wire bit in and it's worse than she'd first thought, shirt soaked down to her collarbones now and the smell of her own blood filling her nose even over the lingering oxidizer- and he doesn't rouse. "We'll chat again soon."

No answer.

Good.

"SCORPIO?" She activates her comm but suspects she doesn't need to. That droid has ears everywhere. "SCORPIO, I need you and Lana at my location- and Doctor Lokin. And a pair of restraining cuffs."

"Of course, Commander." A pause, and then- "Transport?"

"And a duffel bag. A large one."

SCORPIO never smiles; her chassis isn't capable of it. Given how smug she sounds, that's almost certainly for the best. "Of course, Commander. En route."

Author's Note: Long time, no write- a new job, two moves in a month's span and a new baby will have that effect, I'm afraid. This chapter isn't as long as I meant it to be, but let's start the new year off properly, hm?

Oh, did I mention I'm moving to India in April? No? Well. Never a dull moment...

Next up: a little mind-reading.