Somnus V - Chapter 24

“Who are you?” Kat couldn’t stop herself from blurting the question out. After a month or so of the woman shadowing her across Chiwaukee, she couldn’t help it.

 “I’m you, but I haven’t gone soft,” the woman sneered back. “You’ve lost your edge, Erinyes. I’ve been watching you at your fancy balls eating your expensive food. You’ve left the streets behind and become something less. Something weak.”

 Kat’s eyes narrowed. That answer wasn’t terribly helpful. It didn’t provide any information and more than anything it seemed like her opponent was trying to rile her up, to get under her skin so Kat would make an angry mistake.

 If she made a newbie mistake like that, maybe the assassin was right. Kat was faster, stronger, and had more magic than the other woman. More than that, her backup was only a couple of minutes away. If her opponent managed to kill her here, Kat really wouldn’t have anyone to blame but herself.

 “She’s going to kill you.” Whippoorwill’s quiet voice added a chilling vote of confidence to Kat’s innermost thoughts. “You know that right? The only end to a stunt like this is your body, covered in knife wounds, getting dumped in a forgotten alleyway somewhere on the seedy side of town.”

 “And Chiffon,” the samurai replied. “Erinyes’ little pet. I bet it’s eating you alive. ‘How are they doing it?’ ‘How did they know what bar I was meeting at?’ ‘How did they know the exact details of my pathetic little heist?’ All I can give you is the same answer I just gave Erinyes. You’re soft and weak. How do you even manage to board the maglev without a closer inspection? I knew you were coming, and I made sure you made it on board without trouble, all so I could get the two of you away from your annoying security teams.”

 “As for whether or not I’m going to be the one to die?” She asked, tapping the muzzle of her gun against the tank of pressurized hydrogen. “I like my odds. I have the two of you alone, and I have proper infiltration gear. The two of you have nothing but a couple of pistols and a knife. I’ll kill the two of you and disappear. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’ll have died in the middle of a heist and VodCom will destroy GroCorp in arbitration court.”

 A chill ran down Kat’s spine. Her reaction wasn’t anger, it wasn’t something much colder than that. Something more primal.

 “Knives?” Kat questioned, tapping her sheath. “At least give me your name so I have something to add to my legacy when I put you down.”

 “Knives,” the other woman agreed, “and I suppose you should know the name of the person that’s about to kill you. I go by Ice Cobra.”

 Kat tossed her gun to Whippoorwill, drawing her knife in one smooth motion. Cobra’s face split into a feral smile. She dropped her gun to the floor of the train with a loud clank.

 For a second neither of them said anything, their bodies tense as they eyed their opponent up, looking for the tiniest of movements. Kat didn’t know who moved first, but both of them sprang into motion at the same time.

 Dazzle exploded in front of the other woman’s face, appearing just behind a plate of ice. Maybe Cobra’s spell would have stopped a thrown knife or a combat spell, but it didn’t do anything to the rapid strobing lights.

 Cobra stumbled just as Kat pounced, her knife glowing red as she activated Penetrate. The other samurai angled her body slightly to the side, unable to see Kat well enough to block or accurately dodge her attack.

 The knife dug through the other woman’s overalls only for its tip to hit one of the purple armor plates that Cobra was wearing under her disguise. For the first time Kat could remember, Penetrate wasn’t enough to drive the point of her blade into her opponent’s flesh.

 With a high pitched shrieking sound, her knife scraped across the other woman’s breastplate, drawing a line of sparks as it was deflected away from Cobra’s solar plexus. A pair of icicles, each as big as a child’s arm, spun into existence over the other samurai’s shoulder.

 Cobra smiled, joyless and feral, more a toothy snarl than anything approaching an expression of happiness. Both of the ice shards darted toward Kat, too quickly for even her absurd reflexes to dodge.

 Kat threw herself forward, planting a shoulder into the other woman’s armored chest. Both of the attacks seemed to track her, the sudden movement taking her opponent slightly by surprise, but it was far from enough to actually shake off the spell.

 Her Gravity Plane and Domain managed that. Both of the attacks seemed to curve past her, leaving a whisper of wind and rigid air in their wake

 Then, the Gravity Plane hit Ice Cobra, accelerating her sideways into one of the huge metal vats with bone jarring force. The samurai bounced off of the steel cylinder with a loud clang. Kat didn’t see any signs that the impact had actually managed to penetrate the woman’s armor, but Cobra’s eyes were distant and unfocused.

 A concussion would have to be good enough.

 She snapped out a kick, the heel of her foot hitting Cobra’s knee with enough force to break through brick. Armor plates squealed as the blow compressed them together, but unsurprisingly it wasn’t enough to actually break through. Whatever the other woman was wearing, it was better than anything Kat had seen outside of the exotech labs.

 A flash of danger forced Kat to jump backward, Leaping just in time to avoid a sphere of glittering ice needles that popped out of the other woman like she was a porcupine. Cobra shook her head, trying to undo some of the fogginess and confusion that Kat knew all too well from her history with head injuries.

 Kat Threw her knife at the other woman’s face, activating the skill and shifting gravity to accelerate her weapon into a silver blur. Cobra threw up her arms, crossing them in front of her head and summoning a thick coating of ice that covered both of them.

 The knife shattered the ice. As strong as Cobra’s skill was, Kat had pumped too much into the blade for her to just ignore it altogether. More importantly, the attack blocked the other samurai’s vision for one crucial moment

 Kat’s Pseudopod appeared, and almost immediately she could feel the strain from keeping three spells active at once. It darted out and snagged Kat’s knife before it could fall to the ground even as Kat’s open palm slapped the other woman in the chest.

 She didn’t try to punch her armor. If it was durable enough to stop a dagger and a kick, a full force punch was nothing but a recipe for a broken hand.

 Open palm contact was enough. Once again the angled Gravity Plane sent Cobra reeling, accelerating her to the right, but this time, Kat also flipped gravity entirely. The assassin flew upward, her head and shoulders slamming into the roof of the train.

 Before the other woman could recover, Kat’s Pseudopod grabbed her by the ankle, already having snagged and returned the knife. It wasn’t capable of transferring Kat’s Gravity Domain, but it was able to yank the other woman back into range.

 This time, Kat increased gravity’s downward pull, grinding the other woman into the ground. It wasn’t as effective as bashing Cobra into the ceiling, she seemed to be wearing boots and greaves made out of the same substance that had stopped Kat’s knife, but it was still satisfying.

 Especially when Kat grabbed hold of the other woman’s shoulder, using her own strength and the force of gravity to pin her target to the floor. Kat’s knife angled downward, aiming for the seam between the other woman’s neck and the top of her strange purple armor.

 Maybe it was the danger of the situation, but Kat’s lightning quick attack seemed to snap the other woman out of her concussion induced stupor. Cobra let out a puff of breath, twisting her head to the side in a vain attempt to Kat’s blade.

 Every sense in Kat’s body screamed in danger, but it was too late. She smelled something sickly sweet, and then every nerve in her face screamed in agony at the same time.

Distantly, Kat felt her knife bite into something. Warmth splashed over her hand, but the sensation was lost as the rest of her body temperature spiked like she was in an oven. Kat fell backward, both Gravity Plane’s and Pseudopod disappearing as she lost her ability to focus.

Somewhere she could hear screaming. Whip was shooting her gun. More than anything Kat wanted to get up. Ice Cobra was dangerous. Even without her armor, the other woman was a major threat. Whippoorwill wouldn’t be able to handle her on her own.

Kat leaned forward, trying to force herself onto her hands and knees despite the pain, but it felt like she was moving through quicksand. There was more gunfire overhead.

She needed to get up. Kat’s arms and elbows trembled, her entire body was swaying as her stamina began to give out. She had to get up. Whip was counting on-

A hand grabbed Kat by her shoulder. She shouldn’t have felt it through the pain, but somehow it was there. Grounding her and bringing back a fraction of logic to the frenzy that had overtaken her thought.

“Poison!” Whippoorwill was screaming, she had been for a couple seconds now. “Kat, activate Resist Poison you gigantic idiot!”

Kat blinked. She was looking down at the floor of the train as blood dripped downward, staining the steel and carpet as it leaked from her face.

That wasn’t good.

It was a struggle to force her swollen lips to form the syllables to Resist Poison I. Even Kat’s mana felt sluggish. Fire burned through her veins. Whip was saying something again, but Kat couldn’t quite hear it.

Her spell snapped into place, and Kat groaned with relief. Whatever the other samurai was using, a first tier spell wasn’t enough to fix it. Kat’s throat felt like hamburger and there was a numbness in her chest that she really didn’t want to think about, but the throbbing and all consuming pain was gone. She could even feel a little bit of strength returning to her wobbling arms and legs.

“If you pick another knife fight with a samurai,” Whippoorwill seethed. “I swear to God that I will shoot you in the back of the knee myself. What in the name of Adam Smith’s invisible hand were you thinking?”

“I,” Kat began, interrupting herself with a cough that left a hand covered in blood. “I thought I could take her. Plus, she was about to blow up the entire train car.”

“No,” Whippoorwill said, her voice clipped and short. “She was not about to blow up the train car that she was in. Think about it for a second. She would have died, and with your defensive skills the worst that would have happened to us is that we would have been thrown backward into the sleeper carriage.”

“Plus,” Whip continued angrily, “she knew too much. I’d bet you a hundred thousand credits that she knew that the 3445 was on their way. All we needed to do was hold her off in a standoff for a couple of minutes and she’d be forced to flee.”

Kat tried to respond only to start coughing again. Her spell had slowed the poison a lot, but it wasn’t enough to completely stop its progress. Still, the damage was more painful than it was deadly. If Kat had to guess, a couple more minutes of Resist Poison, and she’d be out of the woods entirely.

“You got her pretty good though.” Whippoorwill’s voice softened. “Slamming her head into a metal wall a couple of times seemed to soften her up, but you managed to knife her face and throat pretty badly. It didn’t look fatal if she got treated. Still, she was bleeding a lot when I started shooting her.”

“Erinyes,” she finished, her voice quiet. “Whatever the armor was, it could take armor piercing rounds. The penetrators left marks on her, but none of them actually managed to punch through. I think she was using stallesp tech.”

Kat started talking again, only to break into another round of coughing. She was already feeling a little better, Ice Cobra’s poison had really done a number on her in only a matter of seconds. The creaking scream of tearing metal ended their conversation prematurely.

A 3445 guard wearing a nondescript uniform over unmarked medium armor hopped inside. The clandestine nature of the operation prevented them from deploying APEX armor, but much like Cobra, the suit he was wearing was more than enough to stop anything but the most impressive terrestrial weapons.

Seconds later, Baker stepped inside. They were hooded as always, a gloved hand holding a lightly glowing vape. Almost immediately, they began to point out crates and pressurized storage vats for the teams of logistics workers clad in heavy lifting exoskeletons.

Part of Kat relaxed. Other than the surprise assassin impersonating a member of the crew, their heist had gone off without a hitch. Now that Cobra was gone, there probably wouldn’t be any further problems. Whippoorwill had already erased the records of their arrival, and backup had arrived within minutes of the train detaching.

Without any record or witnesses, the transportation company would be left completely in the dark. All they would know for sure was that the maglev left St. Louis on schedule, and by the time they figured out something was wrong, the rear cargo cars were detached and burning thanks to the incendiaries planted by the 3445.

Kat forced herself up into a sitting position. Whippoorwill ducked under her left arm, wrapping a hand around Kat’s waist and helping her stand up. Kat’s legs were still shaky, but with a little help from Whip the two of them were able to make it past the crews of mercenaries rapidly unloading the train car.

The maglev itself had crashed partially through its rails, but there was a cargo hauler at about the same level as the raised vehicle parked next to it. About fifty paces away, three heavy helicopters were idling, rotors still turning so that they would be ready to take off as soon as the hauler finished loading them with their spoils.

Further up the track, construction exoskeletons whirred and whined as combat teams raided the remaining cars. A pair of gunshots marked the end of a train guard, but that didn’t concern Kat anymore. She wasn’t in any condition to fight, and the 3445 commandos were more than capable. Her future was in one of the helicopter passenger seats.

For almost twenty seconds it was hard to hear anything over the noise of the helicopters. With Whip’s help, the two of them got to the middle vehicle, and Kat managed to strap herself in. Whippoorwill handed her a noise canceling headset, and the second Kat put it on her head, the sound of the chopper blissfully disappeared.

“Are you alright Kat?” Whippoorwill asked, her use of an actual name signaling that the operation was over. “I know you were trying to say something while you were on the train, but you were in really bad shape. I thought you were dying for a couple seconds there, I wanted to get you out of there to someplace secure before we got bogged down in a conversation.”

“I just wanted to point out,” Kat croaked, her voice only beginning to return now that the poison had run its course, “that you tried to bet me a hundred thousand credits. Those are my credits. You can’t make a bet against me with my own credits.”

Whip’s jaw went slack as she gaped at Kat, completely unable to process the sudden and swift tonal change. Despite the pain, Kat couldn’t stop herself from laughing. Whip’s expression was worth it.

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