Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [16]
“Why are you preying on the people here? TPol asked.
The woman tilted her head, a scabrous tongue sliding against one of her forward rows of sharpened teeth. “To survive. To feed. To procreate. To be a reminder, always.
TPol didnt know what the woman meant, but needed to keep her talking until the time was right to move. “A reminder of what? That savagery exists in the worlds we inhabit? That sentient beings can debase themselves to the level of carnivores or parasites?
The woman pushed TPols head back roughly and rose to a crouch as she released a noise that might possibly be interpreted as laughter if it hadnt sounded so much like howling. She looked around at the others, then returned her gaze to TPol, who had gathered her arms close in around her torso, clutching herself the way a frightened child might.
“Perhaps one of these days we should allow someone to return to tell the others what we really are, the woman said. “The origins of what you call the Frislen. Before the experiments, the mutations, the banishment.
The woman leaned in close, fixing TPol with her dark, predatory eyes. “They would tell how we were once you .
In that moment, TPol allowed her entire being to suffuse itself with every bit of energy she had kept in reserve. Flashing her arms out, she pulled the broken sehlat ribs out from where she had concealed them inside her sleeves, tight against her forearms. With a quick slashing motion, she used the jagged tips of the bones to cut the throat of the woman, rolling herself aside even as the ichorous green blood began to spray.
As the dying Frislen woman clutched at her throat, TPol drew the short tricheq from the boot where she had hidden it and threw it at one of the other creatures in the cavern. It pierced his forehead, dropping him instantly.
TPol had barely managed to regain her footing before one of the remaining Frislen roared toward her, on the attack. She swiped her foot out in a wide kick, hoping that her second makeshift weapon would work as well as the first. The sehlat tusk she had strapped to the side of her boot sliced through her attackers torso, and before his forward momentum had entirely spent itself, the Frislens innards were spilling out upon the rough cavern floor.
A keening sound swiftly filled the chamber, and TPol whirled again, expecting to be attacked by the other two creatures. But the one making the sound was exiting the room through a tunnel, his body slipping effortlessly into the darkness. The other one, the creature atop Vekkr, seemed neither alarmed nor particularly conscious of what had just transpired nearby.
TPol noticed only now that she could hear the voices of Denak and Ycha calling out to her. Pushing aside the still bleeding body of the Frislen woman whose throat she had cut, TPol looked down into the pit below the grate. Despite the darkness that enfolded the pit, she could see her comrades, at least in silhouette. She quickly cut through the improvised twine that held the grate in place, moved it aside, then reached down to grasp the hand of Ycha.
The green blood that still rained down on them from the dying Frislen woman made getting a grip difficult, but within a minute, TPol had finished extracting both her fellow agent and her mission leader.
Denak quickly counted the corpses, and listened as TPol told him about the Frislen that had escaped into the adjoining chambers. “There are many more of them than weve seen so far, Denak said gravely, pointing toward numerous cavelike openings that could have served as berths for sleeping or hibernation. “We probably dont have much time before were beset again. And theyll be angry this time, instead of merely hungry.
He pointed to some fabric remains that still clothed skeletons in a shady corner. “Get some torches going with those scraps.
As Ycha scrambled to comply, TPol retrieved her tricheq from the Frislens forehead. A quick scouting of the cavern revealed several of their partys other fallen weapons: both the useless depowered component devices and a few other tricheq s and bladed weapons.