Character is what you are in the dark

One of the monsters pulled Kat to her feet, none too gently. He had a way of leering through that mask. Only Kat didn't get the sense that he was interested in her at all, or maybe any woman, from the way he'd pushed Sam over like an unwanted sack of grain. She had a feeling his desires ran in a more terrifying direction. It made her skin crawl.

"Crisis-2, I'll handle the escort. Provide security for Crisis-4." Crisis-1's shrill, but terrifying voice cut in.

Kat had been certain the other commando would try and kill his leader again, only he didn't. Instead Crisis-2 nodded. "Copy, Crisis-Leader." Then he trotted off into the night.

"March to the starport." Crisis leader said flatly. She could see why he'd taken off his mask. The man didn't need it. His face was a mask, hiding the inhuman coldness beneath. Hiding poorly, it seemed. "You must have some ideas what will happen if I give you to him." There was no need to specify who him was. "Believe me, it will be worse than what you can imagine. Don't try anything."

---

'You're not a hero. Don't get killed like one.'

That's what his Momma had told Teller when she dropped him off at the starport, the day he left home. She hadn't even waited for his shuttle to depart. It wasn't that she didn't care, but she had eleven other mouths to feed. It was a just a numbers game. Practical, like her words, not meant to insult, just a simple read of the facts. He'd been the middle child of ten, not the smart one, or the funny one, or anyone really; not bad, just....average. The middle of the pack in every respect. He'd wanted to stand out from the group his entire life. He'd wanted to be seen. Be careful what you wish for, Simon.

Teller crouched behind a pile of dead bodies and looked around the ruins of the base. His home for the last two years. The commandos- not Confederates, that was for damn sure -had destroyed everything. His friends bodies lay in the street, houses burned, even if the bad guys didn't kill everyone, and that was a big if, they'd likely all die in the next few days from the heat. Not just soldiers, hundreds of support staff, visitors and military families.

The command center techs hadn't made it to the armory. Judging by the bloodbath, their tardiness had saved their lives. A giant commando strode by them, his footfalls actually shook the earth, and from what Teller could see, he wasn't even the scary one.

"Where do you think they're taking him?" Liú asked, looking at the unlucky body slung over the giant's shoulder.

Teller didn't answer her. The doors to the armory were open, the lights on, the whole thing reeked of a trap. He picked up a stone and threw it. No sniper bullet sounded, no bombs went off. Not sure what he'd expected there.

"I think they're gone." Teller told Parekh. "We could sneak in and grab some weapons." Yeah right, Buck Rogers. What would they do with them? All those plasma rifles and power armor hadn't made a difference for the marines, he doubted a bunch of tech dweebs were going to have more luck.

Liú pointed. "What's that?"

On the other side of the plaza, another commando, with the complicated headset of a demolitions expert crouched over an ominous two meter cylinder. A bomb, unless he missed his guess. But that wasn't what she was pointing to. One of the other commando's- the nasty one, that just appeared -had dragged a screaming family out of their home and made them kneel in the front yard. He pointed to each of their two children, then held up his pistol.

"Allah have mercy." Parekh whispered. "He's making them choose."

The father shook his head, he crawled to the pistol wielding monster and pleaded for their lives. The nasty one shook his head, then pointed at each child again, slower this time. The father pointed the gun at himself instead. The nasty one blew his brains out and then pointed to the children again, this time asking the mother.

Three gunshots later, the nasty one started looking for another family. Parekh threw up. Liú covered her ears, eyes squeezed close when another screaming child was dragged outside.

"We can't just watch this." Teller looked at Parekh. "You any good with that?" The lone marine among them was the only one who'd had a low-tech weapon, an old slug-thrower he'd been assigned when they ran out of laspistols this morning at duty call.

The man just stared at him.

"What?" Teller asked.

"We don't want to die, Teller." Liú explained.

"You see the bomb they're setting up, we're all gonna fucking die!" He looked around, saw the uncomfortable avoidance of his eyes. Even trigger happy Parekh wouldn't meet his gaze.

"If we got into the armory. We could seal it up, ride out the bomb. The transport is due in a few days."

He stared down at her, unbelieving what he'd heard. The second family was screaming in the distance.

"Go on then. Live, if that's what you call it."

"No one has to know." Liú pleaded with him.

"I'd know." Teller told her before he tore Parekh's sidearm free and started running.

---

They walked through the burning wreckage of Thiidian base, hands still bound in metal cuffs, Adam long gone. It was a far cry from the jubilant feeling they'd shared walking out of the lab. She pondered what she'd seen and heard tonight while they walked. These 'Crisis' monsters seemed to utilize some sort of chemical enhancement. The anomalous symptoms; albinism, shrill voice, decreased sex drive(?) didn't fit, but Kat would bet anything, that serum they had injected was derived from a Typhon. Milked? Harvested? No. The Typhon was far too violent by far to be domesticated. A distillation? The thought of one of those things, being ground into a powder to be consumed was as repulsive as it was satisfying. Unlikely, she dismissed. A facsimile? Yes, of the venom Adam had described. It's effects were similar enough.

Kat snapped back to reality as they passed another burning house. She wasn't sure if one of those commandos lit fires deliberately or not, it didn't matter though, the fires were already spreading. That was the least of their problems; Harvest Protocol didn't sound particularly noninvasive. Kat had to **** herself not to analyze, it was a defense mechanism, she admitted to no one out loud. She'd get to experience it first hand soon enough anyway. Better to spend her last few moments with her daughter.

"What's your play?" Sam hissed at her cousin.

Cindi didn't even look her way. Smart girl. "If I freed your hands and got you a weapon, could you kill him?"

"Maybe." They stepped over a headless body in a plaza near the alley they'd rested at before. "Be careful what you pick up. Anything that was outside the armory when the EMP went off is fried, even the slug-throwers had biometric chips."

Those two girls were going to get themselves killed. Didn't they know heroic stupidity was supposedly isolated to the Y chromosome? Sigh, Kat to the rescue. As they weaved their way through the bodies and pools of blood, she pretended to slip and then actually did fall onto a pair of dead bodies. The girls looked back, but Kat gave the tiniest shake of her head. 'Use this.' She screamed with her eyes. Crisis-Leader shoved her to her feet, but the girls were far enough away now that she couldn't hear them.

---

Cindi finished explaining her plan. Well, less a plan and more an idea, but it was all she had and she knew that a fast, bad plan would serve better than a slow, good plan at this point. She looked down at one of the bodies she was stepping over, it was marine in power armor she'd seen the giant squish. His head was paste. Looking down at him, she realized it was the first human she'd ever seen die. It should have felt more momentous. Instead she just felt numb. The past few days had taken their toll on her, and it was starting to show.

"It's okay to be scared." Sam told her from her the left. "I am."

"Decisions, not reactions." Cindi tried to sound like she believed it.

"Damn straight. I'll be ready."

Cindi almost did it then and there, before she lost her nerve. But before she even could, their captor's pad chimed again. "Report."

"Sir, he's doing it again." There was a furious pause from Crisis-1. Now! This was the moment. Only her body wouldn't cooperate. Cindi tried to make her fingers move, but they were stubbornly frozen. For all her talk of being numb, the fear was still there. Still paralyzing her.

Crisis-Leader stared off at the other end of the plaza. "Just get the bomb ready."

Why couldn't she move? She Sam look at her in the corner of her eye. Worried. Probably not surprised though. Lil' Cin to the end. Crisis-1 turned to look at her, suspicious.

There were the sharp reports of a slug thrower and his attention was diverted again.

It was now or never! Cindi pushed her entire willpower into that one hand, demanding it obey, slowly, ever so slowly, she pressed the rubber sticker end against her forearm. With a growl, she punched forward and twisted. The burning liquid raced through her veins.

Cindi thought it would be like waking up from the fog she'd been in for the last few hours but it wasn't. It was like being set on fire. She might still have limitations, buried somewhere deep down inside, but it didn't matter, what mattered was now she couldn't feel pain. A girl could go far in this galaxy if you take away her pain. She popped the steel chain linking her handcuffs with a shrug. Oh, and she was a little stronger now. Cindi popped Sam free ignoring the shocked look from the other woman. Sam didn't matter either, Crisis-1 had taken Adam. Her Adam. Now she was going to make him pay for it.

---

Teller ran. With every step, he was more sure he was making a mistake. How was he even going to hurt these things with a dozen bullets? His chubby body wanted to seize and fail, his cowardly heart wanted to curl up and hide, but he kept going. Amazingly, the two commandos were so busy with their various methods of ****, that they didn't even notice him until he was almost on them. He fired a handful of shots and and then ducked behind a nearby fountain. If this was like the holos, his friends would have rallied up behind him to help. Teller looked back. No one. So much for not getting killed. Teller dove to the side and landed at the feet of Nasty. He aimed straight up and fired, the bullets hit only open air and then seconds later, he was flying out of nasty's grip to slam into the concrete. The bastard walked over to him, put a boot on Teller's chest and slowly started to crush him.

"Nice going hero." Nasty said.

Teller pointed, not at the second family who'd slipped away into the night, nor at Nasty's partner, who he hadn't even hit, but just past him, to the bomb whose control panel was sparking and ruined.

"Well, that sucks." Nasty conceded.

Then he pressed down harder and the world ended for Simon Teller, the hero.

---

Cindi slammed into Crisis-1 like a wrecking ball. Sure she was probably only a third of his weight, but she still didn't fight fair, smashing his unsuspecting head with her manacles over and over again, until he tossed her upside down and tumbling, against a nearby wall.

Cindi popped back up without missing a beat. That was nova! She was aware of the impact, but not stunned or slowed by pain. And her senses had sharpened to a fine lethality. She could see each rivulet of blood from where she'd smashed his fucking head. Cindi licked the blood off her manacle, oh yes, she wanted it straight from the tap.

She took a step forward and took a trio of stunners to the chest. This time the seizures made her giggle; sure she was on her knees again, but that just gave her more opportunities. While she was down there, she might as well help herself to that plasma rifle. The moment the electricity stopped coursing through her, she ripped it off the ground and fired until the barrel started to melt, the green was sooooo pretty, she liked the way it turned to yellow when it caught the house on fire.

Kat was there, screaming in her ear. Alright, hold your horses. One quick pop later and the last of the Carters were free. No wait. Adam! She had to find him. She had to save him. Then she was flying again, then rolling before she came up to a low crouch. Her head felt weird. Too hot on the side. She reached over and felt some liquid, tasted it. Just blood. Silly blood, that belonged on the inside. Crisis-1 was sprinting so fast now, arm cocked back to hit her again-

Sam caught him in a flying tackle.

---

Sam and Crisis-1 rolled end over end, punching and jabbing before shoving apart. Sam flipped to her feet, stolen power armor whirring drunkenly around her, she hadn't had time to calibrate it. The fucking vampire looked from Sam to Cindi, then felt his pouch. 'That's right, asshole. We stole your magic juice.' Before he could get over his shock, Sam hurled herself at him again, she wasn't graceful, but with electrofibres powering her, she didn't need to be. Every punch was mack truck. She slipped into a boxer stance; two jabs to the head, blocked but he staggered. 'Watch the counter, Sam.' She slipped under his hook, then pummeled his solar plexus with a cross. Then a second. He didn't fly backward like he should have. Heavy, she realized, like Adam. Sam fell back to avoid his hammer punch that never came and caught his roundhouse kick with her shoulder. Guess, we're switching to Muy Thai.

She blocked another roundhouse with her clumsy armor. Then jumped forward for a grapple, and caught a closed fist backhand to the temple for her trouble. Shit, stay back and you get kicked, get close and you get punched. This guy was fast and way too experienced. What perfect head for a bullet to find a home in, too bad she didn't have one at the moment. Time for a new tactic. Sam dove for a fallen weapon, came with a laspistol and snapped off two shots before Crisis-1 could follow her. Then she leaped through a second floor window in the burning house beside her. A slug thrower round bit into her back before she landed- the bad guy was armed now too. Sam used the smoke as cover and started firing wildly, not back outside, but at the floor below. Then she dropped and rolled across the room, careful not to put too much weight in any one spot. The commando landed a split second later, just where she'd thought, he took a step, then plummeted through the weakened floor into the burning room below.

Sam dove after him, catching him while he was still on his back. She slammed her knees into the floor just over his shoulders and servomotors locked into place. Time for some ground and pound. She rained down heavy hooks like she invented them. Smashing his face over and over again. But it wasn't over. The commando flipped his legs around behind her back, he got one beneath her armpit and heaved, throwing Sam bodily against a wall. She felt that one. The armor didn't actually do much to protect if it wasn't fitted to you. She was in trouble.

Sam got back on her feet and caught another kick to the head. Blood sprayed from her mouth. It was all she could do to stay conscious. She never even saw the uppercut that lifted her off the floor. But she felt it, and the crosses and jabs to her kidneys. The next punch was a hook she managed to block, but it just opened her up and he followed with a haymaker that dislocated her shoulder, then grabbed her by the injured arm and threw her back outside.

Sam felt herself slowing down. The suit wasn't failing, she was. The albino asshole just kept coming no matter what she threw at him. He was just...better. Sam always wanted to die on her feet. She spit out a mouth full of blood.

"Come on then. I haven't got all day." She growled.

He took a step forward only for battle hardened instincts to sense some ephemeral threat, some danger at the last possible second and throw up his arms. It didn't matter. Cindi had picked up a heavy flamer with her bare fucking hands and swung it like a club. When one hundred kilos of steel hits you at full ****; blocking just means your arms get broken first. He crumbled to the ground.

"Hey, what's white and red and almost dead?" Cindi swung again, crushing his chest through that dark black armor, then dropped it on top of his ruined body. "You are."

Sam crashed to the floor, laughing despite the pain. Cindi rushed over to grab her, cradling her cousin's head.

"You ok, Sam?"

Her pupils were as big as olives, Sam noticed, but she must have been the most beautiful sight Sam had ever seen. She smiled up at her, despite the pain.

"That was a good one."

---

Crisis-2 felt his comm buzz. Crisis-5 was calling, open channel. The guy never seemed to shut up. Crisis-2 ignored it, Crisis-4- pathetic fucker couldn't even guard a bomb properly -answered instead.

"I heard gunfire from the south end of the plaza." Crisis-5 was such mother hen. Still, **** had its own delights. Crisis-2 zoomed in his optics and watched Crisis-1 hammering on a girl in misfitted power armor. One of the Harvest subjects. Bet he regretted not tagging them now. People were so much simpler when they were dead. And never more interesting than when they were about to die. Even without the serum, the old wolf was putting on a hell of a show. He'd chased her into the burning house, then threw her out a whole lot more bloody minutes later.

"Under control?" Crisis-3 this time.

Before Crisis-2 could answer, another harvest subject, a little blonde slip of a thing, picked up a weapon as big as she was and flattened Crisis-Leader.

"Neg-" Crisis-4 started to answer. Crisis-2 backhanded him. Then drew his pistol. His eyes dared him to finish. Crisis-4 looked down instead, probably pissing inside his suit.

"Crisis-1 has it handed. Rendezvous as ordered. Confirm." Crisis-2 lied.

Two clicks followed. Crisis-2 aimed his gun at Crisis-4's head. Another click.

Pussy.

The mission was scrubbed. The bomb was toast and the harvest subjects had already fled. No matter. They had what Blackout really wanted. Just one last thing to take care of.

They jogged over to their fallen leader. The old wolf was down, but not out. Incredible, even Crisis-2 was impressed. What would he have been like, if only he'd had the courage to keep taking his dose, he wondered? It didn't matter now. Crisis-2 shoved the heavy flamer off his leader's chest and replaced it with his boot. He leveled his pistol at his head, held just long enough memorize every line of this moment, he wanted to remember it forever. Then he drilled Crisis-1 in the head.

He keyed his comm. "This is Crisis-2. Crisis-1 is KIA. Assuming Lead. Confirm."

The three clicks were immediate this time, Crisis-Leader noticed. The pack was his now.

---

Cindi had gone insane. Kat clung to her cackling niece, whipping through the streets of Thiidian on a hoverbike, houses blurring from the speed. Sam was just behind her, holding on with her good arm. They had stolen this contraption and taken off after Adam and the giant. Kat didn't think they had a plan. They'd gotten terribly lucky beating one of those monsters. She didn't think they'd get lucky again. Still, Cindi wasn't listening right now, and Sam had gotten that mulish look in her eye. Once again, Kat prayed she hadn't acted on her long running crush for Adam. Hearts got broken that way.

Kat screamed when she saw an overturned halftrack blocking the road ahead. But Cindi didn't panic, she didn't even slow down, instead she gunned the engine and dove through an open warehouse door, weaving between cargo stacks and heavy equipment with the grace of a ballet dancer, giggling with each near miss. They burst back into the outside, skidding around a gutted hovercar and rocketed even faster. They were close now. By the time they reached the starport, Kat knew two things. Her niece was an incredible pilot, and she never ever ever wanted to ride with her again.

The wicked black ship was idling when they flattened the fence surrounding the tarmac. The last two commandos walked unconcerned up the ramp before it closed.

"Faster!" Sam moaned. Cindi obliged, cutting through the open space like a bullet. The ship began to rise, hovering on thrusters just meters off the ground. Kat felt Sam put a hand on her shoulder, bracing as she stood up on the back of the bike. Almost there.

"Closer Cindi!" She screamed. But her cousin wasn't trying to get close, Kat realized. She was going to jump the bike itself.

"Hold on to something!" Cindi screamed. Kat was too terrified to scream. Cindi smashed into the low end of a cargo pod, using it as a ramp. They went nearly vertical, arcing above the ship, seeming to float for an impossible moment. Cindi killed the forward momentum and the anti-grav, they wrenched to a halt and dropped like a stone. Only to hit open air as the ship jigged to the side. Cindi fired the antigrav back on at the last second, but the bike still skidded and scrapped across the runway, ruined. Sam recovered first, dragging them behind a nearby emergency shield as the main engine kicked in and bathed the area in superheated plasma.

Sam dropped to her knees, shoulders slumped, head dropped, finally broken by the nights events. And then she began to scream. Pounding at her own legs, trying to vocalize her agony as the ship fled into the early morning sky.

Cindi just looked at her hands, a thousand mile stare to do most soldiers proud. She was numb, finally coming down from whatever she'd done to herself.

Kat glanced back at the ruins of Thiidian, the screams of the night before were just tired wails now; As the fear and exhaustion of last night gave way to the **** struggle to survive the horrors inflicted upon them. For the first time since she'd been there, it wasn't raining Kat realized. Just a cool morning mist, a balm to sooth the wounds they'd suffered. The survivors would need to be tough to endure the hard days ahead. Kat held Sam as best she could, as much as her daughter allowed, while Sam screamed herself hoarse. As she stroked her daughter's hair, and fought to keep her from any more self harm, Kat felt a terrible certainty come over her.

This was only the beginning.