Weekly Drabble #197: Duel of Fate (Patreon)

With the prompt of 'fear those freed from bindings' from Pyro Hawk, we follow up with Adrianna and Fifth. Red Queen versus Watcher - the galaxy's deadliest (mostly) organic combatant is pitted against one of the Triarchs' own guard dogs. 

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Duel of Fates

“You know, I’m insulted,” Adrianna told Fifth as the pair circled each other. She was listening to the data-stream from her forces. With the exception of a few knots of resistance, the defenders were still being pushed back. “I think I rate a better class of trap than this.”

There was a brief blurt of static from Fifth’s helmet. “Local units under-performing,” the Watcher admitted. “Initial planning stages of counter-ambush called for dedicated kill team.”

“Oh, you do care.” Despite the sarcasm and arrogance in her words, Adrianna was evaluating her opponent with a practiced eye. She’d heard stories, but she’d never fought a Watcher before. The species was rarely seen away from their masters’ sides. When they were, it was with the authority and sanction of the Triarchs themselves. She must be quite an annoyance to rate this kind of attention.  “What happened?”

The Watcher didn’t answer her, but she hadn’t expected it to. Fifth’s people weren’t know for being chatty and she doubted it was going to go into detail about the problems it had had with this op. “Let me guess,” Adrianna continued, speaking for her opponent. “You weren’t sure when I’d be here and local command is compromised. You didn’t want word to get out and trusted the personnel evaluations when they talked up their people.” Unlike Fifth, she was willing to talk. Every second that passed gave her people more time to secure the facility and if the Watcher was here with her, it wasn’t hunting down her sappers and hacker teams. “Am I close?”

Several heartbeats passed. “Yes,” the Watcher finally confirmed.

“Then that just leaves one question, doesn’t it? How did you know I’d be here?”

“Your presence in the sector was noted by intelligence assets. Established psychometric profile suggests the ‘red queen’ has a propensity for personal appearances in operations of significant strategic, tactical or political value.”

“Oh, you’re scrapbooking me. I’m touched. Did you want an autograph?”

The Watcher’s head tilted. “You are attempting to extend this encounter,” it realized. “You have been ordered to surrender yourself into my custody. Will you comply?”

Under her helm, all trace of amusement and playfulness vanished from Adrianna’s face. “No,” she whispered in a tone of pure, raw hatred. “Never.”

The Watcher didn’t reply. All that needed to be said had been. It raised the arm with its built-in weapon. Adrianna’s pistol came up. She was faster. A searing blue star-hot bolt of plasma burst from her gun, aimed directly for the Watcher’s center of mass. It found only empty air, slashing down the corridor to strike a distant bulkhead. Another attacker might have hesitated, gaping in shock at the apparent impossibility of what had just happened. Nothing could dodge energy fire. They might have paused to reconcile the paradox of what they knew with what had occurred, but not the Red Queen.

It was the same trick she could do, and had done; the Watcher hadn’t dodged the plasma bolt. It had moved out of the path of the barrel of her gun, so quickly that an observer might have thought it was prescient or even teleporting. It fired back at her, its gauntlet-cannon belching out a torrent of explosive rounds. Adrianna danced through the fusillade, but it was a spray that filled the corridor and several bullets struck her, immolating against her personal shield. She didn’t slow and swept towards Fifth, her khopesh coming around in a blinding arc, met by the Watcher’s own halberd.

There was no clatter or clash of metal as the blades met, only the shriek and crackle the weapons’ disruption fields. The combatants moved in a blur, too fast for the unaided eye to follow. Explosive shells whined and whistled through the hallway as star-bright plasma shrilled, each combatant attempting to bring their sidearms to bear while simultaneously preventing the other from doing so, sword and halberd likewise moving in flashing arcs intended to dismember, cripple and kill.

Close combat was not how the vids and dramatizations made it seem; even between masters, battles lasted only a handful of blows before one fighter left an opening to be exploited, or one was luckier than the other. This was no different. Seconds after meeting, Fifth and Adrianna broke apart. The pirate queen staggered back, clutching one hand to her right side. Fifth’s halberd had sliced through her shield and her armoured polyweave bodyglove, leaving a deep laceration that began just above her right hip and ended below her left breast. Anyone else would have been cut in half, but she had avoided that killing stroke. Barely.

The wound was deep and the injury severe. Her implants were already working to repair the damage, flooding her with stimulants and pain suppressants that wiped away the agony of her scorched, blistering and bleeding flesh.

Fifth didn’t hesitate, bringing its gun up.

Clk clk clk clk

The weapon sputtered, ratcheted and did not fire. Fifth looked down. Its gauntlet-mounted weapon was ruined, scorched through by a plasma bolt. Adrianna hadn’t been trying to kill it with every shot; crippling its armament had also been her intent. She raised her own pistol, the weapon’s grip coated with her own blood. Fifth charged. The bolt struck the Watcher right in the chest, its armour just barely holding against the superheated matter.

Sword and halberd met again. Heartbeats of frenzied combat passed. The Watcher smashed Adrianna’s wrist with the butt of its staff. Bones broke and the pistol fell from her grasp. Before it could exploit that opening, she latched her broken hand onto its halberd, ignoring the disruptor field that scorched away her gloves and started dissolving her flesh. The Watcher tried to pull the weapon away, but it couldn’t budge her. It raised its helm, looking into Adrianna’s eyes. She smiled. Her khopesh scythed down.

The Watcher reeled back, Adrianna finally letting go of her opponent’s weapon. Fifth stared at the severed stump of its left arm, cut halfway through its forearm. The rest of the appendage lay on the deck, leaking unidentifiable fluids. Disconnected from its bearer’s body, it started to sizzle and pop, immolating the biological components within the gauntlet.

Melted flesh and skin dripped from Adrianna’s charred, broken hand. The Watcher shifted its attention from its own injury to its opponent. “You cannot win.” Fifth offered the comment flatly, neither bragging or taunting, but as if it were a simple statement of fact.

Adrianna laughed. “Maybe. But this isn’t over yet, is it?”

“No,” Fifth agreed, raising its halberd with its remaining hand. “Not yet.”