Chapter 14 For Honor #2
I fire my thrusters to propel myself along the hull fragment's surface. Micro-gravity allows for impossible maneuvers—I use the heated metal as a springboard, launching myself at an angle that would be suicide in a gravity well.
Thek-Ka's mandibles spread in what might be approval as I come at him from below. All four of his limbs move in perfect coordination, creating a web of weapon fire and razor-edged appendages that should shred me.
Should.
Through the bond: Left. Now.
Not words. Just certainty. I'm firing my left thruster before the thought fully forms, rolling aside from a plasma burst I never saw coming.
Starboard. Roll.
My body twists through the void, evading a strike from Thek-Ka's blade that would have opened my suit from shoulder to hip.
Center mass. Claws. Gap between plates.
My talons find the opening, scoring deep enough to draw ichor but not deep enough to seriously wound. Thek-Ka's bellow of rage echoes across the open comm channels as he tries to grab me with his free arms.
But I'm already gone, using his own bulk as a shield against his weapons. Zola's tactical awareness guides my movements with the subtlety of instinct, her brilliant mind merging seamlessly with my combat reflexes.
We move like we've been fighting together for decades instead of minutes. My instincts, her calculations—two separate streams of consciousness flowing together into something greater.
"Impossible," Thek-Ka breathes, genuine amazement coloring his words. "You fight as one creature. How?"
"Partnership," I reply, striking at another vulnerable joint. Through the bond, I feel Zola's fierce pride. "Something you clearly don't understand."
There's a pause—a single beat where Thek-Ka's assault falters. Then his mandibles click in what might be grim satisfaction.
"I understand more than you think, Golden Viper.
I understand that you have eyes in places eyes should not be.
That your movements anticipate mine before I complete them.
That you dodge strikes aimed at blind spots.
" His voice carries a teacher's cadence, testing a theory.
"You fight well with your crutch. But let us see what you are without it. "
Through the bond: Warning. Sharp and sudden. Alarm spiking through Zola's consciousness like lightning through storm clouds—
The electromagnetic pulse hits like a sledgehammer made of silence.
One moment, I feel Zola's presence—her tactical analysis, her fierce love, her absolute faith in my abilities. The distance between us aches like a pulled muscle, familiar and manageable.
The next moment, there's nothing.
Not ache. Not distance. Not even pain.
Just... absence.
Like someone carved out a piece of my chest and left a bleeding hole behind.
"Zola!" I call out on the open channel, spinning to face Thek-Ka, who holds what looks like a modified EMP grenade in one of his hands. The device is still crackling with residual energy, its light casting strange shadows across his armored carapace.
No response. Of course no response—she can't hear me, and I can't feel her.
I call again, louder, more desperate. "Zola!"
Nothing.
The bond isn't stretched or strained. It's just... gone. Cut off so completely it feels like losing a limb, like the universe suddenly removed a fundamental constant I'd learned to build my entire existence around.
How long has it been since I fought without her awareness flowing through our connection? Days? Weeks? It feels like lifetimes. The silence where she used to be is so profound it makes the vacuum of space seem deafening by comparison.
"Now we see what you truly are without her," Thek-Ka says, and he's not gloating. He's teaching. Testing. The way masters of the fighting circuits used to test their students—by removing their advantages one by one until only their core remained.
He circles me slowly, deliberately, giving me time to feel the full weight of my isolation.
"Are you the legendary Golden Viper?" he continues, "Or merely a broken pit slave who found a competent handler?"
I try to focus, to call up the combat instincts that kept me alive for three years in the circuits.
But everything feels wrong, off-balance, like trying to fight with my dominant hand severed.
How did I ever do this without Zola's tactical awareness filling the gaps in my perception?
How did I track multiple threats without her calculations running in the background of my mind?
The answer hits me with terrible clarity: I didn't. Not well, anyway. I survived through rage and desperation and the kind of reckless aggression that earned me the name Golden Viper—but also left me covered in scars and barely functional between matches.
Thek-Ka moves.
This time, without the bond feeding me Zola's tactical awareness, I don't see the feint hidden in his primary strike.
His upper arms draw my attention with a flurry of blade work while his lower right hand—the one I'm not watching because I don't have that battlefield overlay in my mind—drives into my ribs like a battering ram.
Something cracks. Pain explodes through my chest, sharp and clarifying, but not in a good way. The kind of pain that says internal damage, cracked ribs at minimum, possibly punctured lung if I'm unlucky.
My vision blurs. The servo-assists in my suit struggle to compensate for the way I'm now favoring my left side.
"Disappointing," Thek-Ka observes, pressing his advantage. Another strike catches me across the shoulder before I can fully evade. My left arm goes partially numb, fingers spasming inside my glove as the servo-assists fight to maintain function.
I'm spinning now, not strategically, not with any tactical purpose, just spinning because that's what you do when you're off-balance and desperate. Debris flashes past in a disorienting blur. Starlight catches on Thek-Ka's armor as he circles me like the apex predator he is.
Blood fills my mouth where I bit my tongue. The taste is copper and failure.
"I had hoped—" Thek-Ka begins, and there's genuine sadness in his voice.
But I don't hear the rest of his sentence because he's moving again, and this time I'm too slow, too clumsy, too alone to stop him. His chain-blade wraps around my damaged arm with brutal efficiency, the weighted end pulling me into a spin I can't control.
I try to fire my thrusters to compensate, but without Zola's awareness, I overcorrect. The maneuver sends me tumbling toward a large piece of debris—the jagged edge of what used to be a station strut, now a floating blade edge that will open my suit and kill me if I hit it wrong.
"Zola!" I cry out again, knowing she can't hear me, unable to stop myself. "Zola, please—"
Nothing.
Just the terrible, echoing silence where my partner used to be.
Thek-Ka's plasma cannon charges with a sound like thunder contained in a bottle.
And in this moment—tumbling toward death, unable to feel Zola's presence, my body damaged and my mind reeling from isolation I never learned to function without—I have a single, crystallizing thought:
I'm going to die out here.
Not because Thek-Ka is stronger. Not because I lack skill or courage or determination.
But because I let myself forget who I was before Zola Cross walked into my life.
I let myself forget how the Golden Viper was born—not from tactical genius or perfect partnership, but from blood and pain and the stubborn, furious refusal to let the universe decide when I stopped breathing.
The plasma cannon fires.