Part 43

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Orren hurried to the body laying awkwardly on its side, scowling in her focus as she tried to recognize it. Neither the black and gray clothing or the emaciated body they clothed was directly familiar. Only when Orren stood behind the body could she recognize her. She smiled dryly down at the surprised Kalish. "It's Orren Nus to you, Sikozu."

"Yes" Sikozu responded with a raspy throat. She didn't look up at Orren as she sat up with an expression of realization. "I am....Sikozu Shanu."

"So they're dead?" Orren looked over what was once a Scarran special ops unit. Fallen while reaching for one of the Scarran's pulse rifles, their pallid Sebacean commander lay dead on her side, a look of hollow shock staring back where Sikozu had stood. "And Grayza. At last."

"I shouldn't have been able to do that anymore....I exceeded my design parameters" Sikozu wondered at herself. She stood, slowly and unsteadily, looking down to herself and then raising upright with a growing pride. "I have exceeded my design parameters" she repeated, this time with her head cocked in pride. Her bloodshot eyes snapped over the dead Scarran unit as she gaped in delight, her sharp teeth glinting in her parched mouth. Then she looked back at Orren. Her stare fell to the Sebacean's chin under the woman's hard glare.

"I don't know how you came to be here" Orren said. Orren waited for a reply but Sikozu only stared with her wild yellow eyes boring into Orren's chin. "It appears they misjudged you."

Sikozu began walking, unsteadily at first but with a growing confidence. She walked around Orren and took a few steps toward the Cordon Wing before stopping. "I misjudged me" Sikozu's eyes stared absently at Orren's middle before she turned her eyes back to the Cordon Wing. "They are going there? Or are they escaping?"

Orren walked around behind Sikozu, studying her. "They should be escaping, but there seems to be a reason that she needs to go inside before they can then escape." Staring off distantly, Orren faced the opposite direction next to Sikozu.

Movement in the rubble just behind the lines the Scarrans had been holding caught Orren's eye. A Scarran Ruling Order female, her face in pain and one arm held limply, was aiming a pulse rifle using a twisted piece of debris to rest the rifle on. Instinctually Orren knew its target and reacted. Sikozu was shoved aside and the Scarran's shot struck Orren in the lower neck before Orren could fire her own pistol.

Sikozu struggled back up off the ground and grabbed Orren's pistol. A shot landed close enough to the Scarran to strike her rifle and blow it out of reach. The Scarran's head fell limp. Sikozu bent over Orren.

"Crichton!" Orren yelled through her agony, her hand clutching a strap on Sikozu's chest. Her face calmed. "They are a pair, did you know that. Sikozu...." Sikozu leaned closer so that Orren could see. "Tell him-" Orren looked aside with a sudden realization, a focus in her gaze when she again looked to Sikozu's face. "Tell him nothing."

Sikozu solemnly nodded once in acknowledgement, holding Orren's eyes. Orren made a clear nod through the tremors before the life left her. After running her fingers over Orren's eyes to close them, Sikozu left her fingers rest on the woman's face.

"I should know who you were" Sikozu whispered to herself. She searched the Sebacean's clothes, but there was no ident, only an empty locket. Sikozu took the woman's pulse weapon and cast the locket away.

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"Tannac!" Bursamen called as loudly as he dared, which was just a strained whisper. Bent over to stay at least partly hidden in the lower bushes around the approach to the Cordon Wing, Bursamen hurried as much as possible to find Tannac. He didn't expect to find her alive, but he couldn't stop himself from calling. There was no sign of Tannac until a some fist-sized nut of a tree came flying at him. He barely avoided being struck by it.

Looking at the trees in the direction the nut came from, Bursamen saw Tannac laying on a long, outstretched branch in the smallest tree at the nearest end of the forest that grew in front of most of the wing. "Tannac!" he hurried to the tree, hiding from the view of the adjoining wing behind the massive tree trunk. "What are you doing up there? There was a battle going on!"

"Yes I saw it" Tannac gestured to show the panoramic view she had from her seat on the tree branch.

"Well!?" Bursamen demanded, bristling with frustration.

Tannac looked at him dully, taking a pulse pistol out of a holster. "Well I'm dying, I have a right to be distracted."

"I'm going to get you out of here, I know a place that might restore you" Bursamen said, although he was wondering how he was going to manage it even as he spoke. "Come down!"

"Aren't you a little too old for that kind of idealism?" Tannac glared back with one brow raised.

"Idealism, it's your fault!" Bursamen jabbed a pointing finger at her.

"Me?" her brow raised higher. "I gave up idealism before you were born."

"What?" Bursamen asked, a small explosion from the wing near the entrance to the Cordon Wing drowning out their whispers. "Just" he gestured her to come down.

"Ooh" Tannac half groaned, propping up and turning on the branch. "Frelling nerfer. Oh all right, but I'm really busy dying here."

"I won't let you" Bursamen insisted.

"Will you stop it?" Tannac dryly objected, sliding down the slightly slanting trunk and leaning back against it. "Though I'd be interested in hearing how plan to stop me."

"No!" Bursaman insisted again, moving up against her. "I thought it was hope of the Sister. Now I realize that you began it. I thought this militia was useless, just a game for excitement, a little sprig of herb from the stew of living in the Establishment's bowl. Until you" Bursamen clasped her head between his hands.

"Nice metaphors. I thought I stopped bringing disillusionment to others when I realized I wasn't the Sister. I see now that I still brought false hope. How did I do this?" Tannac placed a hand on his shoulder and the other at his belt line. "Not that I'm in any mood to know, but your hands feel good on my head."

"You made me think there was more. That something could happen" he spread his fingers in her sweaty hair. "I thought you might force changes in our small band of miscreant youth and our complacent benefactor. Or others could be recruited. I thought if only there were more who had the skills you had, the militia would be a force of change."

"Or be a force, for a change" Tannac thought out loud to herself. "How could I make you believe that?" she asked, her hand at his waist sliding to his buttock. "Come to think of it, how could anyone ever think of any of that?" she mumbled to herself. "Leave me now and see to the safety of the real Sister."

"I will not!" Bursamen nearly snarled.

"Fekkik! You are so impulsive" Tannac complained as he freed himself from his pants. "Impul-!" her complaint was sharply ended when he thrust her hard against the tree. The spike sticking out from her hips by her tailbone stuck into the tree trunk.

"Aaaoow!" Bursamen jerked himself back, looking down at the spike standing out between her lower abdominals. Lifting his shirt, he put a finger over a bit of blood where the spike had poked him. "That could have been serious!"

Tannac looked down at the spike standing out over her bony hips, then at the poke in his skin. "You think I'm impressed?" she snidely asked, jerking the spike sticking out of her back free from the tree trunk. "Maybe with that, anyway, now that's not the worst manhood I've seen, I've got to admit. If Perkunas got that excited I think he'd pass out."

Bursamen roughly turned her around and pushed her back until she was pressed hard against the tree.

"You can't do that eith-" Tannac tried to warn him.

Bursamen covered her mouth with his hand. "Shut up! We don't have ti-" he half entered before the second surprise registered. "FAAAA!" he backed up, looking down at the spike standing out by her tailbone. "You're! You're frelling armored!"

"Aw poor little narl. Is your big secret weapon still intact?" she acerbically asked. A fit of coughs made her bend over a moment, then stand up and shake her head, staggering from the dizziness.

Bursamen caught her and helped her stand up again. "Are you....?"

"Frelling awesome. Something from that explosion skewered my otherwise awesomely sexy hips, promises to frell up my sex life. And then there's the fact I'm kind of numb" she flicked a hard nipple and pulled in a corner of her mouth. "Well you'll have to work around the obstacles if you want in the objective."

"How the frell!" Bursamen grabbed the other end of the spike where it stuck out of the side of her hips and tried pulling it out. The end broke off in his hand. "Naagh" he threw it down on the ground.

"Well if you're going to just stand there looking...." Tannac hissed in a breath "impetuous." Tannac clutched the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss, her lips gripping at his and her tongue clasping behind his upper teeth.

Trying to avoid being stuck by the spike, Bursamen managed to work the upper quarter of his manhood into her. Feeling more than a little stupid, he dimly thought about what they were doing frelling at a time and place like this, but logic was a lost cause against the needs of the moment. Urgency pushed Bursamen to fulfill the need quickly, immediately, bringing rolling thrusts that had to be restrained to an inch of movement. The frustration brought excitement of its own, but before he could focus on it, Tannac put her hand to his jaw, her fingers on one cheek and her thumb tapping his chin.

Tannac clicked her tongue. "So impetuous! You know what this is about? It's not your body. You don't need a watertight seal either you know. I knew so much more at your age" she looked down her nose with a smug grin. "From her. Oh I thought" Tannac looked up, tilted her head back and sighed. "I could channel her...." her hands splayed and gripped in sensation "essence."

"Huh?" Bursamen asked dumbly.

"Of course the better the frell the more fun but...." she leaned close and wryly winked.

"Maybe I'll find out from....her" he looked up at her from his brow.

"Haha I know what you want" she leaned her forehead to his. "Your body's telling on you hmhm so....." Tannac placed her arms over his shoulders and slanted her hips to slide on him just a little further. "Let me show you how to find so much more...."

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