Banshee

12. Bested

Karina had never felt this big an idiot before. First of all for getting getting Thomas injured. She should have just shot those peasants; her relation to Okarron would have shielded her from the worst consequences.

Secondly, for not taking him to a doctor on the city-ship...

Father's pride, what was I thinking...?

If Karina had gone to a doctor on the city-ship, Okarron would have found out about it sooner than she cared to be held accountable for it. Plus where better to treat Human injuries than on their own homeworld?

Thirdly, for getting her and Thomas passage on board the one transport in the city-ship fleet that didn't have working shields. Not that this had stopped the ship's captain from attacking a ship reported stolen by enemy sentients. Confined to the passenger section with a bedridden Thomas, who's left hand had been cuffed to the bed just in case, she had little way of knowing how the fight was going until she heard an explosion on the ship, followed by the lights going out before backup engines flickered them back to life.

No...

The explosion and the lights told Karina that the primary engines had been lost. The sentients were winning this fight. As she locked all doors connecting to the room she and Thomas were in, she quietly prayed to the family honor, the immortal Visionary and her unfailing prophet the Ancient, lord of the Kanarr, and just about every other deity she had learned of in her life, even though she knew that none of them would come to help her here.

She ran back to Thomas, who was clutching his torso again. The anesthetics were wearing off, which made something as simple as breathing increasingly painful with each passing minute. The right side of his face was covered with an adhesive bandage. She looked at him with a worried look on her face, which he noticed.

"I'll be okay, don't worry about me..."

He smiles faintly and even tried a reassuring chuckle, but the latter caused a shot of pain in his chest which saw the smile turn to a wince.

Karina suddenly heard voices behind the main door. They were too low-pitched to belong to the Trena soldiers guarding the ship and its cargo...

Humans...

She took Thomas' bed and pushed it behind a row of high backed seats, hoping it would provide enough cover. Then came the fourth and final ingredient of what made her such an idiot: she hadn't taken her rifle with her. Armed with only a pistol and a combat knife, Karina prepared for the worst.

Shots pounded the door, which soon gave way to the onslaught. In stepped a single sentient, wearing what appeared to be a modified Silcar armor.

No!!! He defiles the armor...

Only Silcarin were allowed to wear Silcar armor... to wield Silcar weapons. The Kanarr had respected this, as well as their client races. But this sentient, even if ignorant of his crime, had defiled the armor he wore; not only by wearing it, but by changing it, adjusting it to fit his own physique best. Karina broke cover and shot the sentient in the arm as she charged him.

She could make out his features better just as she was about to slam into him. He was as tall as she was, but with a bit more bulk on his torso. His face was bare and she could see the look of growing rage... with a strangely familiar bloodlust in his eyes...

Those eyes... that face...

She hesitated for a split second... the sentient spun around faster than she had expected he could move and shoved her down to the floor with his good arm. Karina could easily have kept her footing, yet the momentum of her charge made it impossible to keep her balance as she was swept off her feet. She hit the ground with a sickening crunch and a cry of pain as the collision fractured the bone in her upper right arm. In the few seconds it took Karina to register her surroundings through the haze of pain, the sentient straddled her and tied her wrists together, which made her cry out in pain again.