Kali (or The Needle and the Skull)

Onaris nodded and retreated, crouching to stay low, but fire flashed on his chest and he fell down. “Onaris is hit!” Kurt yelled. It was a shout, but it carried on comm too. He fired at something that moved and then leaped to another rock. He saw the arms of someone pulling Onaris back behind another pillar. Then something flashed to close to his eyes and he turned back, firing off a shot at a half-exposed trooper, hoping the metal slug was smart enough to home in on a head.

He fired again and jumped up, half flying across open ground, bouncing against the hard shrine wall, feeling the impact in his shoulder, turning and firing, blindly. At least once sliver navigated the magnetic fields and struck a trooper in the head. Red blood and black armor exploded back and the Bismarki fell.

Something struck him in the side. It burned. Pain clouded his vision as he turned. He saw the heads of two troopers, laser barrels exposed and swinging towards him, but his gun arm wouldn’t move. He started to fall on the open ground. His brain screamed for him to run, but his legs were rubber. Something flew by and struck the two troopers – one of Ibrahim’s drones he thought – the troops scuffled with the machine and something exploded. Kurt was on his knees. He let himself fall, felt someone tug at his shoulders. Cooper hands. He signaled Words would not come. His ears rang and everything went gray.

* * *

Shirin was hunkered in a fetal ball. Chrys was blank-eyed, hiding behind a pillar. Helenne held the gun in her hands numbly. A menu hung over her vision:

Warning! You have selected the Headshot Option

1. 
   Headshot is not accurate at ranges exceeding 80 meters and may result in complete failure to hit the selected target.
   
2. 
   Headshot implies lethal intent and may result in legal sanction in certain jurisdictions. Please comply with local laws and restrictions.
   
3. 
   Headshot is intended for Human or Humanoid bipedal lifeforms only. Use against lifeforms deviating from the Human norm may result in unexpected behavior.
   

If you have read and understood these warnings, select Continue or else Cancel the Headshot Option.

Helenne blinked and selected the option. The Blitzes were signaling quickly, cryptically on the common channel. She couldn’t tell them apart. She understood their words, but not their meaning. She’d just pulled Onaris back around the shrine. Blood was coming from his right side and out his mouth, his mechanical orbs focusing on her rapidly blinking eyes.

Onaris signaled. His lips were quivering.

Helenne looked at her gun, then to Onaris again then to the pillar. She wasn’t sure exactly where to push. Onaris signaled back.

There was an explosion. Ibrahim came around the corner, dragging Kurt. The Blitz’s side was scorched. Helenne started as Tatyana swept past her, moving impossibly fast. Aki dove and reached for Kurt’s gun, held loosely now. The big man was hyperventilating through gritted teeth; his skin was almost gray and covered with sweat.
Onaris insisted and Helenne dropped her gun, pushing in on the pillar’s corner. Stone slid into the ground. A B’dr’rak appeared in the darkness and she shrieked, falling back.

someone announced. .

Helenne got up, ignored the B’dr’rak apparition and started to drag Onaris into the darkness. “Help me!” She yelled aloud to Chrys, and her boss blinked, dropping the palm gun and grabbing Onaris’s legs.

<Path! We need backup. Get out here! Override everything on my authority!> it was probably Karl yelling that but she wasn’t sure.

came the calm voice of a starship.

Aki signaled, sounding strained.

replied Karl or maybe Fritz.

Helenne ran back out of the darkness and grabbed Kurt’s ankles. Shririn was still balled up on the shrine’s step. “Get inside!” Helenne yelled at the girl, who got out of her fetal crouch, staring wide-eyed and pale and pushed herself, half crawling, half running, right through a ghostly B’dr’rak, who belched something and vanished.

She got Kurt in the shrine. He seemed half-conscious, muttering, something unintelligible. Onaris was unconscious now, his eyes closed, breathing shallow, blood still flowing.

Aki yelled.

Explosions boomed. Noise echoed loud off the mountain and shrine. Bullets and rock fragments sprayed like hard rain.

Fritz remarked from somewhere outside.

Path intoned.

Ibrahim came running into the shrine, carrying Tatyana over his shoulder. His eyes lit up, two searchlights against the darkness. Helenne saw the room for the first time. It looked old: a smooth rock floor covered in thick dust. Short octagonal pedestals, a meter or so wide, crisscrossed the floor in a regular pattern. Ibrahim dropped Tatyana on the floor. One of her legs was stripped to the bone and shiny at the shin. A large patch of her scalp was gone. It was metal underneath. Helenne mouthed something but no words came.

“Not at all as it seems,” Ibrahim said aloud. “I need all the dynamic memory you have.”

Helenne reached into her belt for spare data sticks.

“What is she?” Shririn asked.

“Risen, Android, Avatar,” Ibrahim said. “Doesn’t matter which. The brain is decohering. I’m not sure I can store it all. He grabbed Helenne’s memory sticks and stuck them into his spine. “I’ve got this one, you take care of the others.”

Path signaled.

Helenne looked to the wounded. Kurt was fully conscious again, looking dazed but breathing better. Onaris was bad. Helenne had no idea what to do.

“Looks like his lung,” Kurt rasped, spitting blood onto a pedestal. “Here, take this and stop the bleeding.” He handed her a small medical kit.

She opened it, found the bandage. Directions linked to her guide, and she followed them, spraying the bandage over the gushing wound. “Is he going to live?” she asked.

“He’s got two lungs. Depends on the bleeding,” Kurt grunted. He spat more blood then tried open a ration bar with his teeth. She turned to help him, but he said. “I’ll be okay if we can hold out. Trapped in here.

Ibrahim looked up suddenly. he announced.

Fritz commed from somewhere.

A B’dr’ak apparition appeared on one of the pedestals, nearly intersected Helenne’s arm. It wavered and then stayed, belching something. She ignored it. Onaris looked paler. She was sure blood was rushing through his body, through the ruined lung, drowning him.

“He’ll get another life, in any case,” Kurt assured her, trying to sit up, passing his shoulder right through the immaterial B’dr’rak.

Karl insisted from somewhere.

Path announced.