1.31.1

Fight and Flight

“Astrid, you okay?!”

She stumbled out of her hiding place to find the technician on his toes to look for her. “Are you hit?!”

“It’s just the shoulder, I think…” Astrid gritted. In truth, she wanted to scream. But there were other things to worry about. The explosive behind Dell blinked with a full sequence of lights. “What do we do now?”

Dell pushed Astrid’s hand back over the wound tight in a silent order that she keep applying pressure.

“We run.”

Easier said than done, the two made a break for it.

Dell took point, with both hands available for weaponry, while Astrid needed one hand, and the majority of her dexterity, to keep as much blood in her body as possible while her heart pounded.

With relief, she reasoned before too long the shot she’d taken must have missed anything critical. A superficial wound, she deemed. At least, so long as it didn’t slow her so much that they couldn’t outrun the blast.

Her body glistened with sweat while it responded to wracking pain. She could swear she felt the jolt of each shaking breath in her spine.

Between Dell’s attention to detail, and Astrid’s sense of direction with the generators that powered the base, the two made their way not toward the back, but toward the front where they’d been first escorted. Only once did they stumble upon a patrol. But already in full flight-mode, the pod of operatives were gunned down by charging forms they barely saw.

Those outside must have abandoned their posts. Or perhaps charged inside themselves when the fighting started, because no one stopped them when the pair staggered into the sunlight and lit out into the barren Tundra.

Astrid could barely breathe. Her body sagged. But even she knew just being outside the structure was not enough.

The fact Dell kept running was the only indication Astrid needed.

They flew over dirt and dust, afraid any moment the ground would rupture beneath them, when a dark shadow passed overhead.

Astrid gasped to find the vessel that swung around to hover in their path was not any she recognized. Wounded, she felt an easy target. And even as Dell raised his weapon, she knew it would do little against a metal hull.

But the small vehicle, little more than a travel shuttle, swooped in the air to expose its side to them.

The door swung open to reveal Anders and Tenya braced inside the door frame, each with one arm extended for their squadmates.

With a burst of relief and joy, Astrid and Dell dashed to them and threw themselves aboard.

“Go!” Dell yelled immediately. “Go, go!”

With momentum Astrid crashed on the floor of the shuttle. She huddled on her knees and single hand while red seeped down her arm. She steadied herself against the motion of the vessel while it vaulted upward from its ground position.

While the shuttle fled, Anders helped Astrid to her feet.

Tenya checked Dell for injuries, too. Then upon finding none, she patted his cheek fondly.

“You’re alright,” she told him. But her gleeful grin shone most relieved.

Anders immediately fussed over Astrid’s wound, but with adrenaline deadening her nerves, the Channeler assured him she was fine.

“I don’t think it’s serious.”

Anders ignored her. He yanked at supplies from a nearby kit at Walker’s knees as if angry. And despite her protests, he tightly looped sterile wrappings around her shoulder with a fixed scowl in place.

Astrid scanned the inside of their vessel to distract herself from the sharp stabs that came each time Anders tightened the pressure. She growled through her teeth at the pain but determined to show herself at least half as tough as the team she'd come to admire. It was not easy.

Romo sat at the helm, with a sweaty Dell having fallen into the seat next to him.

Along the benches on the far wall, Walker knelt beside an unconscious Rahna. He tended to her head from a first aid kit pulled from under the seat. The same one Anders ravaged moodily.

Finally, the lieutenant tied a knot, and the creases between his brows eased.

Astrid groaned. It still hurt, but the pressure afforded a secure, bracing comfort. At least for now.

“What happened in there?” she finally asked of Anders and Tenya.

Tenya crossed her arms and inclined her head to Walker.

“He got called away in the middle of our ‘meeting’. We thought something happened with you, so we were trying to get free, when some of the S.O. showed up to exact a little vengeance. Supposedly against orders.” Tenya rolled her eyes, clearly skeptical. “They tried to stage a coup. Apparently, not everyone was on board with taking us alive.”

“We got loose in the fight, but they said you were probably dead, or soon would be,” Anders explained. “We went to find you, but instead, we found the armory. They had hundreds of those energy weapons. Way more than they do people here.”

“That’s where I found Dell,” Astrid told them. “But that much weaponry… it’s got to mean there’s more out there, right? A lot more.”

Tenya nodded gravely. Then eyed Walker and Rahna.

“Worse, they had military grade equipment,” Anders muttered. “They either stole it, or someone in the Service is supplying them.”

“Some of those S.O. were soldiers.” Tenya looked beleaguered under the notion. “Still wearing their goddamned tags.”

“Whatever they collected, Dell took care of it…” Astrid assured them.

She fondled her fresh wrapping idly. Now that she knew they were safe, her injuries ached to make themselves known.

Just as she forced a deep breath to manage the throbbing ache, a visceral rumble, then explosion, roared behind them.

Romo swooped around the perimeter so they could look over the stone edifice they left behind.

Astrid watched from a window while they flew safely overhead. Rock heaved, and then imploded in the vacuum left behind. The S.O.’s hidden headquarters, and many of its men, collapsed in a pile of rubble.

Three armored bodies looked to flee the scene, but when the Aldebaran's crew spotted them, Romo swung around so Tenya could pop the door, and finish off the last while they ran.

“Tetris will have heard that…” The chief closed the side door once more and curled her fingers around the railing bolted just above.

Viewing the destruction, Astrid could only thumb her crystal.

From the cockpit, Dell worked the comms to hail the Aldebaran and confirm their success.

To hear Shaely’s voice respond, for Astrid, signaled an end almost too substantial to process.

It should have meant they won. That after all their effort, they succeeded. But even in her pain, and the disturbing feelings that came from observing how Walker cared for his murderous mate just meters from them, Astrid felt anything but satisfied. Or at peace.

She looked to the window, perturbed by the unsteady doubt that wiled its way into her gut.

“Hey.” Anders came to stand beside her while she stared out over the scarred tundra. “You know what this means?”

Astrid didn’t reply. But she leaned closer to him, bloodied and all.

“We actually did it,” he said. “The Opposition’s leaders have surrendered. The base, and the cache of weapons is destroyed. We did what we set out to do.”

The shuttle zipped away from the cloud of dust that lingered where the S.O. base once stood.

“And we all made it,” she reminded them both. “Just like you said.”

Astrid listened to Romo and Dell’s conversation in the cockpit. The pair, too, exchanged gratitude they both survived.

Tenya followed Astrid’s gaze, then with a gentle smile, went to the boys to celebrate their narrow victory with them.

“That could have gone so bad.” Astrid returned to her attention to Anders. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the risks we take.”

“If today proved anything, it’s what we can do together. Even when we’re not together.”

Anders offered her a tired smile, and equally fatigued, she swayed closer to him.

He moved to nudge her affectionately, but they both winced to remember their respective injuries, and immediately parted.

Astrid’s fight with Polaris, while invigorating, left an undeniable void behind. The power she wielded in their exchange left a scar somewhere inside, like a flood cut through a riverbank. Forever broadened, and now, left a hollow channel.

Exhaustion pressed into the vacancy.

Astrid’s gaze wandered to where Rahna’s body remained safeguarded by an aggrieved Guardian.

“They’re complicated. Those two,” she lowered her voice to speak only to Anders. “Why they did what they did. If they hadn’t tried to ‘save’ us, to turn us to their side, we may not have won against the whole base. We might’ve been gunned down the moment the Tetrians delivered us.

“It’s only because of them it worked out this way. Whoever takes over won’t make that same mistake.”

“Then we’ll need to be ready.”

“What Rahna talked about, it wasn’t just about what was happening here,” Astrid worried. “Or Sanctuary Argos. It’s beyond me, or my place on this team. Something is coming. Something bigger than all of that.”

She looked to Anders for comfort, but he too, seemed resigned to that reality.

“Probably.”

Astrid sighed and returned to the vista of sprawling landscape.

“Whatever it is, Astrid,” Anders promised, “you aren’t alone.”

She looked to his face, worn and stained with battle grime. But full of faith and confidence. In her. In them.

Astrid decided then that she needn’t know what lay ahead.

It was enough to know where she’d find the strength to meet it.