But something happened shortly after they arrived. Now the black-clad soldiers couldn't move her, couldn't touch her and couldn't even get too close to her. The only explanation I could think of was some sort of impenetrable magical barrier that protected Karin's comatose body.
Amber tapped my shoulder. “Where is she?”
“Down the hall. There's a large room all the way at the end; that's where Karin is.”
“The hall's probably trapped,” Meilin added. Her sister grimaced and nodded silently. There wasn't anything else of value here, really. Once the assault team hit the outer perimeter, the base commander knew they'd be coming for Karin. The only thing that didn't make sense to me so far was why the defenses were so light.
“Let's try something.” Amber pulled a smoke grenade from one of her pouches. She didn't remove the pin, but instead just threw the little concealing bomb as hard as she could down the corridor, causing the rubberized sphere to bounce crazily off the walls.
“Shouldn't be long—”
An explosion ripped through the corridor and I pressed myself flat against the wall. Meilin was right, of course—they'd mined the hallway. After the smoke began to clear, I peered around the corner and tried to look for any objects attached to the walls, floor or ceiling.
They were there, all right. At least twenty or thirty small, flat gray boxes had been fastened to various surfaces in the hallway. The crater blasted into the floor marked the location of the mine Amber intentionally set off.
“Okay, they're proximity-fused types. Not a lot of power—they don't want to shred the corridor completely—but they went with quantity over quality. We need to set those mines off before we can get down there.”
I looked down at my palm and frowned. “I can destroy the mines with spell-flame.”
“Yeah, that seems like the best solution.”
Flames blossomed into being around my hands. I manipulated the elemental power into small, fiercely-glowing spheres about the size of a pea. Such tiny projectiles wouldn't have much effect on an enemy, except perhaps to singe their clothing and annoy them, but I knew they'd be able to set off the mines with a minimum of energy expended.
“You might want to duck behind the corner,” I warned. Amber and Meilin flattened themselves against the corner opposite me and I loosed the little seeking bombs, sending them to find their targets. I kept my head poking out around the corner just long enough to ensure they would hit the mines.
A series of small detonations rippled through the hallway only a split-second after I ducked back around the corner myself. Dust clouds billowed from the corridor, obscuring any view of what might be down there, but we all knew what would happen now. The entrenched defenders would in no way be fooled into thinking we blew ourselves up.
“Right on schedule,” Amber chimed as gunfire zipped through the dust clouds before they could even dissipate. No, they were certainly not fooled at all.
“How are we going to get in there safely?” Meilin stuck her pistol around the corner and fired off a few unaimed shots, hoping to keep the defenders from getting too bold. “The barrier I cast won't deflect more than a half-dozen hits at best!”
Amber plucked another grenade from her pouch, but this one was different than the smoke bomb she'd sacrificed to check the hall for traps. Gray metal, weakened in strategic locations, encased a small amount of explosives.
“What if you hit Karin?” Meilin demanded, staring at the fragmentation grenade in her sister's hands. “We came to
rescue
her, not kill her.”
“It's okay,” I insisted, nodding to Amber. “Even if she is caught in the blast, it's not going to hurt her.”
Meilin didn't look convinced. “Are you sure?”
“I'm sure—I'm close enough that I can feel it now. Karin's body is surrounded by a powerful magical barrier that almost nothing can penetrate. We could detonate a nuclear bomb right on top of her and she would be completely unharmed.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don't know, but that isn't important right now.” My eyes hardened and my tail lashed. “Amber, use it before the soldiers try something creative. We can't let them gain any more of an advantage.”
Amber shrugged. “Well, she's
your
fiancee.” She twisted a knob on the frag grenade and tossed it down the corridor.
The ensuing explosion was
much
more energetic than the small mines they'd lined the hallway with. My ears swiveled toward the opening and I could hear the cries of pain as the frag grenade's shrapnel found flesh. An authoritative voice started to shout over the cries, clearly trying to re-establish some semblance of order.
“They're all in disarray,” Amber snapped, raising the Shattered Sword triumphantly. “Let's go!”
We surged into the hallway with the Swordlady leading the charge. Amber's Relic crawled with huge arcs of purple-white crackling energies. Invisible motes of loose mana in the corridor began to converge on Amber's body as she sucked more and more of it in and pushed it through the Shattered Sword. I blinked, confused, wondering just what in the world she was doing—
And then I understood. The defenders managed to gain cohesion once again and were now firing down the dust-free corridor, desperately unloading startling volumes of fire in an attempt to keep us back. But the deadly rain wasn't reaching us.
Amber's grin was wide and wild even as sweat poured down her face from the exertion. Her thickly-muscled arms bulged, veins standing out on the taut skin, as she willed more and more energy into the Relic, projecting a bubble of howling winds and arcing, spitting lightning bolts.
The defenders fired again and again, their panicked shots coming more erratically as more of them began to realize the inevitable. The charged shield projected by the Shattered Sword forced the shots to angle away, striking the floor and the walls. Some of the shots were sent back toward the defenders themselves.
“Meilin,” Amber grunted, “do something about the rest.” Her voice was deep and throaty, almost unrecognizable, but I understood the tremendous effort required to maintain the charged shield for so long.
Her sister didn't respond with words; instead, Meilin flexed her left hand and the Spell Engine's core began to blaze with an eerie blue light. Her free hand motioned for me to step back as she activated one of the programmed offensive spells in the device.
A blue bolt of concussive power burst from Meilin's left hand. The projectile of pure astral force blasted down the hallway, arcing toward the right as she guided it through the open door that led to our destination. Her gloved hand clenched and swept downward, triggering the force bolt and engulfing the area just inside the doorway in a bone-shattering detonation.
The gunfire stopped.
“They're either all dead or all unconscious now,” Amber said as she slowed the rate at which mana flowed into the Shattered Sword. The charged shield flickered and faltered before collapsing entirely. “That was a nice shot, dear sister.”
Meilin grinned without a hint of animosity. “Thank you.”
“We can pat each other on the back later.” My tone was harsh and impatient as I started down the hallway, drawing my left-hand dagger as I walked. “Come on, let's get Karin and get far away from this awful place.”
intensity
Even though I'd expected it, I was still visibly impressed by the carnage we managed to wreak upon Karin's captors.
I walked carefully through the room at the end of the corridor. It was a large, wide-open area with several worktables, desks and shelves containing all manner of devices and sensors. Fully half of the room had been shredded, the walls, floor and ceiling riddled with holes and cracks. The combination of Amber's grenade and Meilin's bolt of force also left the entirety of our opposition dead or unconscious beneath my feet.
Fully fourteen people had been holed up in this room. The only way in or out was a single set of double doors at a right angle to the direction of the corridor. That explained why we were only attacked by a few guards at once. They couldn't
all
crowd at the door without exposing themselves.
“I can see now why you think this place was only supposed to be temporary. This is about the least-defensible place I can imagine,” Amber marveled as she toed several of the bodies on the ground, trying to determine which ones were dead and which were only knocked out. If one of them decided to wake up while we were otherwise engaged, it could go badly for us.
“It obviously wasn't constructed with repelling a hostile infiltration in mind,” her sister agreed. Meilin opened the main port of her Spell Engine and was now sliding her last fresh quintessence cylinder into the device.
“So where's the lucky lady?”
I didn't bother turning toward Amber as I pointed to a heavy auto-locked door on the far wall. Several printed signs had been taped up against the wall, warning people not to enter the specimen containment room without authorization and proper safety gear.
“That's one
very
well-sealed door,” Meilin remarked.
“Yeah, but the Shattered Sword can get it open no problem. Stand back.”
Amber took a deep breath and let it out slowly; as her breath blew out of her body, the loose mana in the room began to gather within her. The Shattered Sword sizzled and hissed as arcs of power flashed between the deep fissures in the enchanted steel.
With a wordless yell, she swung the blade down at the door, striking with a series of heavy slashes that burned deep into the thick barricade. The edges of her cuts glowed molten and I blinked as I realized she wasn't repeating her trick from earlier at all.
Metal squealed in protest as a sizable portion of the heavy door canted forward. Amber took a long step backwards and sheathed her Relic. The cut-out section shivered as it hung, suspended, by badly stressed and twisted remnants that quickly gave way. The metal slab crashed to the floor.
“See? Told you I could get it open.”
I gawked at the cut edges of the slab on the ground. The door had been constructed out of blast-hardened steel that was over ten centimeters thick. Armored heavy tanks had thinner skin than this door, and the Shattered Sword cut through it with ease.
“All right, Misaki, it's all you now.” Amber said.
“We'll give you a little bit of time alone with her,” Meilin added. “Just make it quick; the assault force isn't going to be able to hold them off forever. It won't be long before they realize the attack is a diversion.”
I didn't bother to respond. Karin was in there, and nothing else in the world mattered to me more.
Darkness seemed to yawn from the doorway. I couldn't make out any details of what else was inside, but I doubted there would be any further danger to me. I started to walk, slowly, almost hesitantly, into the room. As I crossed over the remnants of the door still attached to the threshold, the lights inside switched on.
The sealed specimen chamber was small, perhaps only forty square meters at most. Rows and rows of equipment lined the walls, various bits of incomprehensibly expensive and complex electronics. Dominating the center of the room was a raised platform that looked sort of like an overbuilt hospital bed. A mass of electronics, heavy high-current power lines and ultracapacitors were crammed beneath it, but it didn't look like an impromptu construction. The platform was topped with a series of modular cushions that were set upon adjustable sub-sections, enabling the device to conform to different bodies.
On top of the platform itself was Karin.
My tail's incessant swishing slowed and stopped as I stood beside my love. Someone cleaned her up and changed her clothes—she wore now what looked like some sort of hospital gown that was open in the front. Her hair fanned out slightly from her head, looking only a little ragged for not having been cared for in several days.
We'd only been apart for barely a week and yet I felt as if it had been years. Centuries. I felt the tears start to flow, but I ignored them, not even bothering to wipe my eyes. Sobs wracked my body as I collapsed onto the platform, my head and upper body resting against Karin's chest.
I stiffened as I felt my fingertip come into contact with something hard, metallic and unusually warm. My tears dried up as I willed myself to pull together. Something was… not necessarily
wrong
, but very
different
.
Something significant had occurred.
My fingertips deftly untied the cord that held Karin's gown closed at the front. I pushed the cloth away from her skin. There were many small scars, partially healed and still reddened, on her abdomen and near her breasts. But the most shocking revelation of them all—I expected to reveal the healing remnants of the terrible sword thrust, but what I saw was something else entirely.
A fragment of some metallic substance was embedded in the center of her chest. Scar tissue had bubbled up around the shard, but it wasn't healing normally. From what I could discern, the skin around it was undamaged and healthy, but it was strange. The flesh seemed to meld into the mirror-smooth fragment, as if it had grown into her and was anchored to her bones and skin and very being.
Tentative fingers reached out, touching the fragment lightly. A sensation of incredible power thrummed through the metal fragment, seeping into my hand and into my spirit. The sensation was intimately familiar to me; in that brief instant of contact, I understood.
Trying not to start crying with mingled relief and joy, I bent down and kissed my love on the lips.