99 – Wind down

99 – Wind down

With the last nearby Astartes dead with a final echoing scream, and Selene healed up to tip-top shape with a new armour — tendril included — covering her, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

No other living human or transhuman was within range of my senses, but I had no doubt they would be swarming this cavern in no time. Or maybe not. There were still Tyranids at their gates and without ... oh right, I had two other companions.

‘Valenith?’ I sent the transmission once I mended his telepathic channel, too.

‘My Lady? Are you unharmed?’ he sounded frantic, concerned.

‘I am a bit battered, but I am healthy. What’s up with you two?’

‘Don’t care about us. The Astartes betrayed us and attacked Lady Selene!’

‘I know.’ Well, someone was turning out to be rather devoted. That was good. ‘I have her. Did you two escape?’

‘Indeed. The good Magos was the one working the transmitters when the order for your capture came in. He alerted me and I was able to extract him in quick order.’

‘Good,’ I sent. For a moment annoyance gripped me about them not alerting me about the capture order, but I realised I was not only under a null-field for most of the fight but also unable to receive any psychic messages. A fractured mind does that. Plus, the telepathic channels were barely existent before I repaired them. ‘Are you two in a safe location?’

Still, even if they couldn’t alert me, they could have helped Selene escape. That fuckwit Val should be just as capable of Blinking into her room and away with her as I was.

‘We settled into an abandoned fortress in some ruined city. It is about as defensible as you get on this wasteland planet, My Lady.’

‘We’ll be there in a minute.’

I sent an order to the Hunter Drone. It was to stalk this cave, absolve the tendril inside of it, and make as much of a nuisance of itself as possible. Then explode if it was under any threat of capture or assimilation into a bio-pool.

Giving the Tyranids a free super upgrade like it was still a huge no-no. I didn’t know what the play Dante was going for was, but his sorry ass wasn’t worth risking empowering one of the endgame threats.

I could have killed him. I thought. He was in my grasp, held still under my psychic might, along with all of his top soldiers. A single thought was all it would have taken to kill them all, well, aside from Mephiston.

I Blinked. Appearing behind Val, causing him to whirl on me with lightning hissing to life between his fingers.

“Oh,” he said. “Welcome. My Lady.”

“What’s up with this ‘My Lady’ bullshit?” I asked though the edge of my lips quirked upward.

“I thought it appropriate,” he said as his spine straightened. “You have given me enough to warrant my service till the end of my days, or even beyond if you so wish. It is only proper for me to refer to you in such a way.”

Great, I have an Eldar acting like some 18th-century butler. It was ... well, fun. In a way. I’ll take it.

“I wanted to ask,” I narrowed my eyes at him and watched in amusement as his face scrunched up in ... fear? “How come you rescued that coghead, but not Selene?”

His eyes went wide and down at Selene’s unconscious body in my arms. “I- I didn’t know she was in need of rescuing- I thought she was,” he gulped. “With you, My Lady.”

I stared at him for a second longer, but I could tell he was truthful and truly regretful. Though the regret seemed to stem from something other than letting harm befall Selene. Whatever. Not now.

“Is there a clean room with an intact bed in this dump?” I asked.

“I suppose,” he said, turning around and pointing down a hallway. “That direction should hold the rooms for officers. The commander’s rooms are trashed, so those are the best we have.”

“Good,” I said. “Do you or ... where is Zedev?”

“He is attempting to get the electric grid back into working order. He says the backup generators are still intact and should be easy enough to get to work.”

“Tell him to make sure it doesn’t transmit our location,” I said. “I don’t know what Dante will do, but I don’t want them swarming this place while Selene is still resting.”

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll set up wards and such. We might be quite far away, but I think their Librarian might sniff us out if we don’t take precautions.”

She stirred. I felt her mind slowly go from slumbering to half-wakeful and to waking. Then, I could tell the very moment her eyes slowly cracked open even as I remained with my back resting against the side of her bed.

She snapped up, hands propping her body halfway to a crouch. Her entire being was coiled like a spring and her aura was dripping with wariness.

“Good morning,” I said, grimacing at the tangible guilt in my voice.

“Huh,” said Selene. Her body relaxed at the sound of my voice and slowly slumped back into the bed. “You seem alright, are you alright?”

“Mostly,” I murmured. “Some things will take a while to heal.”

“Did you get him?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “He ran off looking like a porcupine. Though, if he doesn’t have some miracle healing trinket, he will be dead by now.”

“Porcupine?” she asked, slowly rolling on the bed and flopping off of it right next to me.

“A weird animal that used to live on earth,” I said. A moment later, an illusory replica of the animal was running around the room, only stopping to hiss at us and bristle its spikes. They call those spikes, right?

“It’s kinda cute,” she noted.

“It is,” I nodded.

“Soooooo,” she said, drawing out the word as her gaze pierced the side of my face. “Last thing I remember is ... getting held down and ... they drugged me, didn’t they? What happened?”

“It seems Dante thought with the fleet only a day or so out, it was imperative to make me compliant,” I said with a scowl. “Kidnapping you was the only way they could do that, though I’m sure they thought they could take me if need be. Hopefully, I rectified that misconception.”

“Did you kill them?” she asked, eerily calm for someone who was debating whether being in a relationship was heresy just a week ago.

“I should have,” I said. “But ... I thought the situation might still be salvageable. We just need to be much more careful, only meeting through illusions and drones ... “

“You won’t take away my armour this time,” she said as her hand grasped my own. “I would have butchered them if my armour could still heal me. If you are to play these games with them, I don’t want to stand back and watch like some helpless civilian.”

“Of course,” I nodded easily. Then I took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry, Selene. I ... went out to fight alone to satisfy my ego, or pride, or whatever and I left you in that nest of snakes basically naked.”

“And then you came and rescued me, didn’t you?” she asked. “I was terrified, you know? I felt our psychic bond shatter and your little reality recoil, twist, and warp. It felt like the world was ending, and on top of that came the Space Marines kicking down the door.”

“I’m sorry,” I hung my head.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Do better. You are alive, I am alive, and both of us are mostly healthy. All we can do is to not repeat mistakes.”

“Damn, that’s deep.”

“Serving in the Guard was good for something,” she said.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I released a frown I didn’t know I was holding and just enjoyed the warmth of her body pressing into the side of my own.

“I want to be powerful,” she said as her grasp tightened on my hand. “I want this nagging worry in my head telling me that I am weak, that I am just a statistic, that I am just a simple human to finally go away. I want the freedom that power gives you.”

“You merely need to ask,” I said, slowly tilting my head towards her. “I can give you a body like my own. All you ever needed to do was ask.”

She arched her neck, her steel-grey eyes narrowed at me challengingly.

“Can I have it?” she breathed.

I smiled.

“Of course.”