Chapter 15 - Part II.

(Sofia)

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The one-sided battle between the drones and Merkala had come to an end in under two minutes.

Even overclocked I had trouble following her movements as she leapt from drone to drone, using them like stepping stones, and sliced them just once before jumping onto the next target.

Now that it was over, I stared at the wrecks on the ground and an old saying came to mind.

I believed this was ‘the calm before the storm’.

I believed it was also time to get away.

So why was Merkala standing in the middle of the ruin she’d caused and not running away?

What was she waiting for?

The longer she stood still the more anxious I grew so I called Maestro using the Fragment-Link and told him the situation.

*All of them? he asked. *She destroyed all of the drones?

*Yes. All of them. The smugglers ran away too. They disappeared with a form of thermoptic camouflage.

In my mind, Maestro’s voice became sharp and stinging. *Then what are you waiting for—a damn escort? Get your ass back here now or my head is going to roll!

*But what about Merkala?

*What about her?

*What if she’s captured? If she’s interrogated and tells them about the plan—?

*Captured? That monster? Are you serious? She would rather go down in flames than be captured? And as for the plan—she doesn’t know the details. In fact, she doesn’t know our true objective at all! Besides, if she wants to stay behind then it’s clear she’s covering for you. So get your ass back here now, you brat!

Was that it? Was Merkala staying behind to draw Public Security Section Zero’s attention?

I couldn’t ask her. When I called out to her, my mental voice didn’t reach her.

*Sofia!

*Y—yes. I’m on my way.

*Now, Sofia. Now!

Swallowing hard, I turned away from the support column, and leapt low and fast away from the scene of destruction.

I kept to the pillars, landing beside them with each leap and using them for cover. At the same time, I focused on reconfiguring the effect-fields surrounding my Siren to warp active scans around me, rather than absorb them. I hadn’t unlocked all of my Siren yet, so there was quite a bit of manual work for me to do. Once Siren’s Core was unlocked, a lot of its automatic functions would become available to me, and it would allow me to concentrate on other aspects of wielding it.

Aided by Siren’s guidance system, I flew a ragged course to the ramp leading down to the middle level of the Old Docks – a ramp I had walked up no more than an hour ago when trailing behind Merkala.

Not for the first, I regretted following her on a whim.

Truthfully, I was tired of being cooped up in the ship, and I’d noticed her taking frequent walks out in the Old Docks. So I had chosen to follow her, and effectively stretch my legs.

I didn’t admire Merkala as a person. I found her cold and calculating and unpredictable. She was the kind of person that could turn on you at any time if the situation suited her. What I admired was her enormous strength. I admired her restrained power, and the overwhelming confidence it gave her.

I admired her fearlessness when facing the other members of Crimson Crescent.

It was her power that I wanted, and the Seraphim was an Artifact I desired to possess.

But it wasn’t to be.

When I was tested for the sole Seraphim my mother’s family had in their possession, the results were poor. Because of this, my mother had gifted me with a Siren Maiden, one she claimed was in her family’s possession since the ancient days of the War of Supremacy. In fact, my mother believed it belonged to a Siren Maiden who fought alongside Kallum Kämpfer, the legendary general who brought the war to an end with the successful invasion of the Human Empire’s capital world.

I didn’t know if my Siren’s association with the general was true or not, but I knew of Kallum Kämpfer, and he was someone even my father regarded as an important figure in the history of Familiars. However, my father considered him a traitor who sacrificed the future of Familiars to uphold his own ideals.

The point of all this is that I admired Merkala for her strength, and I wanted to learn more about her, yet I was also cautious around her and chose not to show her my true face.

All that said, I was really regretting my decision to follow her out into the Old Docks.

I came to regret that a whole lot more a short while later after flying down the ramp, and landing in the middle level of the Old Docks.

I had a but a second’s warning from my Awareness-field – something that felt like a full four seconds when Overclocked – before the ground around me erupted as it was struck by lightning, except this wasn’t ordinary lightning but cannon fire from a Vector Wing.

I summoned a handful of Siren’s barrier-fields, the smoked glass-like panes weathering the lightning storm that could easily rip apart an armored troop carrier.

The hexagonal panes shattered, and reformed again once the storm had ended, maintaining a defensive barrier around me.

I chose not to wait, and leapt through the cloud of pulverized rock and permacrete and into clear air. As soon as I flew out of the cloud I saw them – a young man and woman, standing a few meters apart from each other, and some two hundred feet away from me.

Both were dressed in black and white Skin-Regalias.

The man looked like some kind of knight with four arms, and I realized he was operating a Grand Chevalier.

However, I didn’t recognize the woman’s Artifact and that worried me a lot. I saw two floating Vector Wing clusters flanking her, and a couple of Vector Wings hovering close behind her. She too looked like some kind of female knight, and carried a long bow in her right hand.

She raised the bow and aimed at me as I leapt away, thrown off course by their appearance, but hoping to circle around to the next ramp that would take me down to the lowest level where the Pantra was hiding.

Glancing over a shoulder, I saw the man and woman chasing after me, leaping low and fast.

I realized the obvious and almost came to a stop.

I didn’t know who these people were, but having fired on me I didn’t believe they were friendly. My gut feeling was they were Public Security Section Zero, and if I kept fleeing, I would lead them back to the Pantra.

I would lead them right to Maestro and his crew.

That was something I couldn’t do, so I changed direction with my next leap and headed west for the nearest exit out of the Old Docks. I knew there was a long road that led from the docks to the habitats of Island One. If I could get to the road, then perhaps I could flee into a habitat and escape my pursuers.

At the very least, I would be leading them away from Maestro and his people.

*Maestro, I’m sorry but I have a problem.

*What now? Where are you?

*There are two people dressed like some kind of knights and they’re chasing me.

*What…?

*I said there are two people chasing me—

*I know what you said! Damn you girl. Why did you follow after that blasted woman? I told you stay to aboard the ship!

*I—I’m sorry—

*Sorry, doesn’t cut it!

I leapt past a support column and a large part of it exploded a heartbeat later as Vector lightning lanced into it.

Escaping the cloud of debris, I touched ground, then leapt again, my jump enhanced by lev-fields and mobility-fields emanating from the Siren’s four Vector Wings extending out behind me.

Another leap, and this time Vector lightning tore up the ground ahead of me just as I was about to touch down and kick off again. The Siren’s Awareness-field gave me enough time to cast barrier-fields to shield me against the debris and free kinetic energy, but I stumbled and rolled when I landed on the torn up ground. Picking myself up, I started running and then leaping again, but a blurred shadow overtook me, and extended a wall of barrier-field panes in front of me.

I crashed into them.

Actually, my barriers crashed into them first, shattering the wall, and then I crashed into the cluster of Vector Wings fanned out before me.

The impact knocked me away and to the ground.

As I fell, I glimpsed the Vector Wing cluster spin and crash into a support column.

Rolling on the cold rock floor for a handful of heartbeats, I used Siren’s maneuver-fields to get back up, but the second Vector Wing cluster slammed into me with the force of freight train, and sent me flying into the side of a support column.

A handful of barrier-fields prevented me from going splat into the unforgiving permacrete and rock column.

I slid to the floor, my vision swimming around, and a pounding headache beating the insides of my skull.

Somehow, I still kept my connection to Siren, and also kept it from retreating into its Sarcophagus hiding in a Pocket Space void of its own making. But the impact had stunned me, and I slipped out of my Overclocked state.

Refusing to go down, I struggled to rise to my tapered feet, but the Vector Wing clusters appeared in front of me, hovering a couple of feet off the ground, and suddenly I was pinned by invisible hands to the cratered support column behind.

Siren recognized them as manipulator-fields.

With the amount of power being put into them by the Vector Wing clusters, I felt like I was being crushed by an overweight truck into a permacrete wall.

*Siren—give me everything you’ve got!

[AFFIRMATIVE]

“I wouldn’t try breaking free, little girl.”

Behind the Vector Wings, I saw the young woman walking calmly toward me, carrying the large bow in her right hand. It wasn’t the kind of bow that fired fletched arrows. Instead, it would fire lightning bolts like the weapon of a god in High Heaven.

Then, without warning, something slipped into my Awareness-field and against my throat.

It was a blade, like that of an ancient longsword, and its edge rested against my exposed skin.

Afraid of moving my head, I shifted my gaze to my left and looked up at a young, clean-shaven young man wearing a calm expression.

“Now then,” he said gently, the blade remarkably still against my throat. “Why don’t we see what lies behind that mask.”

By mask, he meant Siren’s masquerade ball mask that I wore on my face. It was white like my Siren’s armor, and butterfly shaped.

“Don’t summon your Sarcophagus,” he advised me in his gentle voice. “I would hate to have to decapitate you. Just reach up slowly and take it off—!”

He stopped as he jerked sharply and grew stiff.

By some miracle the sword didn’t slice my through my throat, but I was too afraid to even breathe.

My eyes on him, I saw his expression fall into confusion.

Then both he and I looked down at the immense spear emerging through his gut.

Behind him, I glimpsed the snowflake remains of several barrier-fields vanish into the air.

I realized that the spear had pierced the barrier-fields and his body without anyone noticing until it was too late.

It remained there for only a second, then disappeared when it was pulled out of his body, emerging out his back, and disappearing out of sight as though reeled in by an invisible line.

The woman’s shocked cry cut the air. “Gawain!”

Then the Vector Wing clusters flew away from me with eye tricking speed, and formed a protective guard before the woman. An eye blink later and two black winged clusters crashed into her Vector Wings, knocking them and the woman back as though she’d been collected by an inter-Island bus.

One moment she was there. The next moment she was gone.

The man, Gawain, had fallen to his knees, though his Skin-Regalia had sealed itself and his wound to prevent further blood loss.

“Damn,” he groaned. “That really hurt.”

Free of the manipulator-fields, I stood up, using the column behind me for support.

As I did so, he was speared again, this time through the chest.

Shocked, I forgot to breathe as I watched him gasp for air.

The sight of his face growing blue was all I needed to get me moving.

Summoning lev-fields and maneuver-fields, I circled around the support column, away from the man, and leapt continued west across the Old Docks.

I flew like the wind, as the saying goes.

I didn’t recognize the spear that harpooned the man, nor the flying clusters that crashed the woman out of the picture.

All I knew was that I was free to run away, and that’s all the occupied my mind.

My Awareness-field shrilled a warning into my mind, and I skidded to a harsh stop.

A second later a sleek black craft materialized in front of me when it dropped its thermoptic camo-field. It took me a heartbeat to recognize the smuggler ship floating a couple of feet off ground on levitator-fields, and before I could leap around it a side door opened up revealing a black clad man wearing a dark featureless mask.

“Come on!” he yelled at me. “Get inside!”

I was too confused to move.

Again, my Awareness-field shrilled at me, but before I could turn around, I was scooped up by manipulator-fields and tossed into the ship’s cabin.

I landed on the floor of the cramped cabin in such a way that I could look back through the open door in time to see a woman attired in a black Skin-Regalia land gracefully inside the ship. Her long hair fluttered wildly about her as she reached back and hastily slid the door shut.

“Go,” she commanded. “Full Stealthrun. Full silent running. Get us out of here!”

From the front of the ship, someone yelled back, “We are gone!”

The man who’d opened the door stared at the woman with long lilac colored hair. “Bloody Hell, Sayen. This is crazy. This is sheer bloody madness. Why go back for this girl?”

The woman ignored him. The armor of her Skin-Regalia made her appear seven feet tall which wasn't a good thing in the cramped interior, so she discarded it by returning it to her Sarcophagus. As a result, the interior of the cabin filled with the black mist that poured out of a breach whenever Pocket Space opened up to real space.

Through the mist, I heard a man cry out from the front of the ship, “Ah, damn it! That shit is cold!”

“Do you have to do that in here?” another man asked from somewhere toward the rear of the small craft.

The mist faded away, but left the cold chill behind.

I suddenly realized I was still in full Siren Armor, but not knowing if it was wise to return it to my Sarcophagus, I sat on the floor, surrounded by Siren’s Vector Wings like a giant downed butterfly.

The woman emerged back into view, wearing a dark purple and black miniskirt dress that revealed some of the best legs I’d ever seen. She was also quite big up top, the dress stretched madly about her chest.

Stepping up to me, she pointed at my Siren Armor. “Toss that back into the can.”

I blinked a couple of times, then realized what she meant.

Again the black mist filled the inside of the cabin, and again the men complained, but once Siren was in her Sarcophagus and the breach was sealed, I found myself standing against the opposite inside wall of the craft’s cabin.

The woman studied me in silence for a long while, as did the two men flanking her.

One of them asked, “Why did we go back for her—?”

“Quiet,” she snapped, then stepped closer to me. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer. Believe me when I say that I’ll know if you’re lying.”

I swallowed and called out in my mind, *Maestro?

Unfortunately there was no reply, and I was suddenly afraid.

*Maestro? Are you there?

The woman narrowed her eyes, and glanced at my necklace. “Trying to call someone, are you?”

I gave myself away by stiffening for a heartbeat.

She snorted. “Fragment-Link?”

I swallowed, then gave her a weak nod.

Planting her hands on her hips, she said, “Don’t bother using it. I disabled it when I grabbed hold of you.”

My heart grew cold and I blurted out, “What? How?”

“Fragment-Link can be interfered with, but you need to make contact with the Artifact. It’s just like turning off a communicator. You just press the button or turn the dial from On to Off. Unfortunately, once you turn it off the link is broken and has to be physically reestablished with the other party in order to work again.”

Being taller than me, she leaned down and studied me intently.

“Now, answer my question truthfully.”

I swallowed hard, not once but three times, and gave her a jerky nod.

She smiled and I pictured this is what Merkala’s smile would be like if Merkala ever smiled.

“Are you Sofia Seres Crescent?”

My heart stopped beating, and my throat grew as dry as sand paper.

Her smile remained icy cold.

Somehow I succeeded in clearing my throat, though my voice broke.

“Yes.”

The men beside her gasped, and one of them muttered, “Gods in High Heaven….”

The other man looked stunned and breathed out, “Bloody stinking Hell….”

The woman straightened and then began to laugh.

She laughed so hard her breasts bounced wildly, but even they weren’t enough to attract more than a glance from the men. That was because they were fixated on me…and with good reason.

When she calmed down, she wiped at her teary eyes.

“Well then,” she said with undisguised humor. “I guess I should introduce myself.” Once again planting her hands on her curved hips, she announced in a clear voice, “You can call me Sayen. My real name you can forget about it. In fact, I forgot what it was as well.” Tossing her hair, she added, “These are my band of merry men.”

“Sayen?” I breathed out.

“That is correct,” she replied. “Until I choose a new one.”

Then she leaned forward until her nose and mine were an inch apart, though her large breasts pushed into mine.

“So tell me, little Sofia Crescent. Why is the daughter of Crimson Crescent’s boss here in Pharos?”