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Earth, The Riverside near Barren Caverns
The team, composed of ten of the Oracle's crewmembers and all of the Venture's, made its way single file across the river via a bridge about a mile upstream from the reaper lair. It didn't take long to reach a thick copse of trees a few hundred yards from the main entrance.
Now it was time to split up, each sub-team setting out for its own mission. The moon rode high above, shedding silver light on the crews as they went over the last details of the plan.
"I don't like it," Val repeated for the fourth time. "Sending you in as bait is just..." she paused, searching for the right word. "It feels wrong."
"None of us like it," Tessa said.
Magnus snorted, the noise sounding uncannily similar to the word 'understatement.' Tessa tried to ignore him.
"The range on the NTU is limited." Tessa had already been over this ground. But if she needed to repeat it again so that Val played along, she would. "We need to cover all our bases and get as many of the reapers into the trap as possible. For that, we need a lure, and I'm the strongest one we have."
"They want me as bad as they want you," Val retorted.
"I don't have a daughter to protect," Tessa replied calmly, and watched all the color drain from Val's face.
"That's not fair."
"Fair has nothing to do with it. I'm expendable. You aren't."
"Whoa, there," Magnus broke in. "Who said you were expendable?" He waited a beat. "Because you aren't. Not to me. Not to anyone here."
Caught out, Tessa looked away. "I just meant–"
He put a hand on her cheek, gently turning her face to his. "I know what you meant. But it isn't true. You are important to a lot of people, Tessa. And I’m one of them. You aren't allowed to get yourself killed, get me?"
Rakan hoisted his blaster – a rifle he'd modified with Sirius' technology – and rolled his eyes. "If we're done getting all moony, maybe we can get to the destroying part?"
Tamar cuffed him on the shoulder, then winced at the pull on her wound. Tessa and Val had both tried to talk her into staying on the Venture, but she'd refused.
Yolanda and Zaran stood by, waiting quietly without joining in the banter. The twins stayed close to Tessa.
Do not worry, Handsome Magnus.
We will keep Dr. Tessa safe.
Magnus let his hand fall to his side. "Right. Yolanda, you and Zaran take your teams and circle around the hill to the other two entrances. Keep in mind that reapers don't all look the same. Especially not these. So keep your blasters out and your eyes open. Nothing gets past you, got it? Nothing."
Yolanda beckoned to her people and moved out. Zaran gave a playful salute. "Got it, Captain." She gestured to her team and headed toward the hill.
"And keep track of your kills," Tessa called after them. Zaran lifted her hand in acknowledgment, her yellow feather hair drifting in the breeze. Yolanda didn't respond at all.
Alex handed the NTU to Tessa and held up the control module. "We'll set up above the kill box as agreed. Tessa, you just whistle when you want us to flip the switch."
"Will do." Tessa tucked the box under her arm. The twins stayed with her as the rest, including Magnus, headed through the forest, weaving through the trees to the main entrance. Once there, they'd take up positions in a rough circle meant to catch any reapers who got past Tessa.
Tessa waited patiently, staying well-hidden and off the path, on lookout in case the reapers sent out scouting parties.
"At least they haven't killed anyone else since the last attempt," she murmured.
You have not given them time, Dr. Tessa, Pan said.
"That was the point," she acknowledged. Fifteen minutes later, Magnus' voice in her mindlink informed her that Val's team was in place.
"All right, Pan and Dora. Time to play some whack-a-reaper."
I do not think whacking them will be effective, Dr. Tessa, Dora said dryly.
Tessa allowed herself a vicious grin. "Maybe not, but it’ll be fun. Now, you two know what to do. Stay hidden, keep a count of how many I draw out and let Alex know when we reach forty."
And destroy any who get past you. Dora sounded determined, and Tessa didn't bother correcting her. She didn't plan to let a single reaper get past her.
Birds trilled in the trees as a sweet breeze swept up from the river, carrying with it the scent of water and lush vegetation. It didn't feel like a battle was about to begin, but Tessa knew better. The reapers wouldn't go down easily.
She strode along the unbroken ground straight for the hidden entrance, making no attempt to hide her approach. The Syfe slipped off into the trees, to a spot where they could see the entrance and the area in front of it clearly.
If she hadn't known it was there, Tessa might have missed the brush covered hole in the ground that was the entrance. The reapers must use this entrance a lot, she thought. A path is forming.
The sparsely grown dirt path led straight to a bent sapling surrounded by a growth of red and pink castilleja.
Tessa took a deep breath and set the NTU down next to her left boot. Then she pulled her ice blasters from their holsters. "Hello in the hovel! You little toaster-heads sent a message. I'm here with the reply."
Silence reigned. Even the birds stopped singing. Nothing moved, and the air grew heavy with expectation. She could feel eyes on her, and not all of them were friendly.
After waiting a few minutes for a response, she tucked one blaster into her holster and morphed her hand into her usual weapon, then fired a shot into the hillside a few feet from the entrance. Dirt, rocks and foliage exploded outward, showering the ground in dirty rain.
"You can come out and fight, or you can cower in your nasty little hole while I pull the hillside down on top of you. Your choice," she yelled.
In the distance, the zip-screech of an ice blaster echoed against the trees. Tessa's mouth flattened into a grim line. Reapers weren't programmed for fear or self-preservation, just tactical advantage, so they were probably trying to surround her.
"Thought you'd sneak out the back, did you? That's not going to work." She fired another volley into the hillside, sending a cascade of brush and rock sliding down, then returned her hand to its usual form and pulled out the ice blaster.
A scream of rage echoed from the cave mouth and a reaper hurtled toward her, followed by a stream of its teammates. Tessa's first shot took it in the head and it dropped, unconscious, to the ground. Backing slowly, she kept firing, taking down first one, then another. The ice blasters wouldn't destroy the reapers, just knock them out until their nanocytes thawed. Hopefully, this would be over long before that happened.
In the meantime, the ice blasters provided a window of opportunity to disable and then destroy the little monsters. She couldn't ask for more than that.
Faint sounds of battle drifted to her as she downed reaper after reaper. They were coming faster now. It wouldn't be long before she couldn't keep up. How many were...
A reaper screamed at her, launching itself from a foot away to latch onto her arm. She flung it off and stomped its head into the dirt as another jumped on her back.
"Now!" she yelled. Ripping an attacking reaper from her shoulder, she threw the little beast into the oncoming horde, knocking several over like bowling pins. A high, keening screech of static burst on her ears and she staggered. "What the hell was that?" she muttered, shaking her head, trying to clear it.
More reapers charged out of the entrance, some tripping over others who fell in front of them. She gripped her blasters and fired, but the buzzing in her head sharpened, growing louder with each second.
There were so many. And they kept coming.
Tessa stumbled as the edges of her vision clouded. What was happening?
A reaper jumped at her, knocking the ice blaster from her left hand and latching onto her arm with its razor wire teeth. She pulled it free, crushing the thing's misshapen head with her fingers. Then her fingers blackened and flaked, disintegrating as she watched in horror.
Around her, reapers faltered. Some wobbled to a halt where they stood, others simply fell over.
Pain seared along her synapses, leaping from one spot to another, flaring, dying, surging to another area with burning intensity. The clatter and screams of her enemy grew muffled, as if someone had stuffed cotton in her ears. Her interior screen blared with red system warnings, telling her that her body was malfunctioning; shut down was imminent.
The NTU. It was attacking her along with the reapers. "Sirius?"
She fell to her knees, dropping the other ice blaster as her vision darkened and her lungs heaved. She couldn't lift her head. Her gaze fell on her legs, the fabric of her leggings suddenly loose and sagging as black dust sifted through the cloth onto the ground.
"Turn it off!" Magnus yelled. "Its killing her!"
Time slipped and slid away from her. It was quiet. The static whine was gone. No shriek of attacking reapers, no blaster fire. Just the wind, and a few birds calling to one another in the trees.
Running steps thudded across the kill box in her direction. Bright splashes of color careened through her field of view – she couldn't tell who was charging toward her. Desperate, Tessa tried to morph her hand into a blaster, but the command wouldn't go through. She toppled, her cheek landing heavily on packed soil. Light speared through her, pressing her to the ground, into darkness.
"Tessa?" She forced her eyes to focus, and Magnus was beside her. But if he was so close, why did he sound so far away? "Hold on," he said. "We turned it off. You're OK. You're going to be all right."
"Reapers?" she rasped, her voice a scratchy caricature of its usual resonance.
"We got them all. Don't worry. Just hold on."
"Good," she said, and closed her eyes.
