Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Of course Rykal wasn’t going to leave her. Not when he’d heard the familiar skittering sound of Xargek larvae in the vents. Not when he’d heard them scratching up and down the elevator shaft.
But he was a little bit messed up right now, and he didn’t want her to figure that out.
It had happened when he’d pulled her up out of the elevator.
The memory had been so sharp, burning brightly in his mind. Arin had called it a flashback.
For a moment, it had nearly destroyed him.
Out of all the First Division warriors, Rykal considered himself the most defective; the most fucked up. That mind-wipe shit the Empire’s scientists had tried to pull on them had left him with confounding fragments of memory, like shards of broken glass that couldn’t be put back together.
The memories could be triggered by almost anything, but he hadn’t had a flashback for such a long time.
Yet it had happened when he’d gripped Arin’s arm.
He’s clutching her arm, holding on so tightly, but she’s too heavy and she’s starting to pull him with her, because his body is just too small. He’s only a child, after all. She looks up, smiles at him, and lets go, falling into the abyss below.
Maybe the others had these fragments too. Maybe they were just better at burying them. Maybe they had better self-control.
She doesn’t scream. She just smiles, her eyes overflowing with love for him.
Rykal swore as he stabbed his sword into the wall and made another hole, squeezing through the gap.
There were narrow corridors in-between the walls containing deadspace.
They housed all manner of pipes and cables and even some monitoring devices.
He advanced along the deadspace and waited until he heard Arin’s steady footsteps, made heavier by the dual load she was carrying.
She reached the hole he’d made, paused, sighed, and then moved on, heading further up the corridor.
Rykal followed her by sound alone, navigating through the hidden corridor between the walls.
Occasionally, he had to duck or crouch as pipes and machines got in the way, but he had no trouble matching her speed.
He tried to rid himself of the bitter aftertaste of that terrible memory, of what he’d seen in his mind’s eye when he’d touched Arin.
She slips out of his grasp. It’s his fucking fault, because he isn’t able to hold on. He’s too weak. Too small. He screams as shots ring out and the crater below lights up with flashes of blue plasma fire.
Rykal followed Arin as she picked up her pace, her footsteps echoing through the thin metal walls. She walked with fierce purpose; he could almost feel her anger reverberating through her footsteps.
He’d probably pissed her off, but he’d had his reasons.
An overwhelming wave of emotions had overtaken him.
Searing, white-hot anger. Despair, as bitter and black as the Callidum mines of Kythia.
Emptiness, terrifying and unfathomable. He wanted to fight something.
He wanted to kill. It was like the bad old days all over again, before he’d learned to be a proper Kordolian.
That’s why he’d had to leave her, because he’d been afraid she might see something ugly. She was beautiful and pure, and she shouldn’t have to put up with his shit.
Rykal listened carefully as she stopped. Underneath his helm, his ears twitched as he filtered the various sounds that trickled to him from beyond the walls.
One was Arin’s hand touching a door panel.
The next was the grind and screech of an elevator as it descended to their level. It was a clumsy, cumbersome thing, like just about everything on this floating metal junk heap. It ground to a halt, and Rykal heard its doors slide open.
Rykal stopped moving. The internal corridor snapped abruptly to the left, bending at right angles before continuing.
Humans. Everything they built was so primitively linear. Rykal’s hearing told him that the elevator shaft was behind the bend. A familiar sound echoed up and down the shaft.
Skitterskitter. Skitterskitter.
Xargek.
Shit. They were probably building a nest in there.
Wasting no time, Rykal cut a hole in the roof of the low corridor and pulled himself up through the floor.
He ended up in a deadspace somewhere above the elevator unit.
He sliced an opening in the wall beside the shaft and emerged into a dark space that stank of grease and chemicals mingled with something putrid.
He was above her now, standing on the roof of the elevator unit.
Arin had probably heard him making all that noise, but he didn’t care.
The elevator started to move upwards, propelled along smooth metal tracks by a small motor.
Rykal looked up and saw several dark forms nestled in the corners of the elevator shaft.
They were Xargek larvae encased in thick cocoons. They were undergoing metamorphosis.
Small larvae swarmed all over the black cocoons, secreting some disgusting sticky substance that coated and reinforced them.
Rykal’s dagger found its way into his free hand, and he went to work, slashing at the cocoons as the elevator continued its lumbering ascent.
At times, it would get stuck as it hit the Xargek mess.
That’s when Rykal would increase the intensity of his thrusts, furiously slashing at the cocoons until they fell apart, spilling the half-metamorphosed bodies of wriggling insects all over him.
He ignored them because they couldn’t do anything to him in their current state.
Instead, he focused on making sure the elevator was able to move.
“Rykal, is that you?” Arin’s alarmed voice reached him. He ignored her, focusing on the task at hand.
The physical exertion felt good. Killing Xargek felt good, even if they were only larvae. He threw all of his anger into it, his slashes and thrusts becoming increasingly savage.
They were heading towards the top of the shaft.
There was a dark ceiling above, and Rykal dropped to his stomach, flattening his body to avoid getting crushed as the elevator reached the end of its tracks.
Of course, the impact wouldn’t be able to compress his armor, but it would be damn uncomfortable if he were standing and managed to hit his head.
The elevator ground to a halt. He heard the doors swoosh open, and then footsteps as Arin stepped out and started to run.
Hundreds of Xargek larvae swarmed all over Rykal, trying to dig their vicious fangs into him.
It didn’t matter. His armor deflected everything, and he set to work slicing them in two with absolute precision.
He had to hurry and kill as many of them as possible. Arin was almost out of earshot.
Before she got too far away, he carved a hole in the top of the elevator and dropped to the floor. Xargek rained down around him, swarming everywhere as Rykal followed Arin into the corridor.
It was actually quite easy to track her because her crisp scent lingered in the stale air, creating a perfect trail for him to follow, even when he could no longer hear her footsteps.
Xargek larvae swarmed around him, following him. Rykal stabbed them as he ran, leaving a trail of foul carcasses in his wake. Now that they’d infested the freighter proper, there was no way he was leaving Arin unguarded.
It helped that he felt better now; his anger had dissipated, and he was less volatile, although the terrible haunting memories that had resurfaced would stay with him forever.