Style-wise, the town was much like the others Saketa had seen so far on this plain. This one had clearly been built around a factory that was pretty much in the dead centre, but aside from that the houses were of now-familiar size and materials. There was no real destruction to be seen, which probably had something to do with its proximity to the capital.

The place was as poor in personal vehicles as every one of its siblings, but with no one around there was nothing stopping Usta from hiding anything in any house he wanted.

Saketa took the place in for a while longer once she’d absorbed all of this, but there was nothing else to be seen from a distance.

“Anything?” Vanaka asked as she slid back into cover.

“No.”

“Are you certain this is the place?” the girl suggested.

“Fairly certain,” Saketa said. “I feel it in the waves; an expectation of violence.”

Another thing she’d noticed about “civilisation” was that people tended to have odd reactions to her people’s basic realities. But that was their business, and she ignored Vanaka’s look.

Saketa looked about from where she lay with her back against the hillock. There were places one could get a better view, but each one would also leave her much more visible to anyone who might be looking back, unless she was willing to go much further back. This particular vantage point had gotten her quite conveniently close to an outlying street, and there really was no point in wasting such an advantage.

Well then.

She drew her sword.

“How are you?” Vanaka asked with some concern.

The girl had offered another one of those iron-rich drinks from her home, giving the first offer an added meaning in hindsight. Saketa had accepted.

“I am well enough for this,” she replied. She held the weapon in both hands and used it to focus herself, gathering strength for the fight that was to come. “Now; as we discussed.”

Vanaka took a steadying breath and nodded, visibly gathering her courage as she put her pack down and lay down to present the smallest possible profile. The urge to stay with her was strong; to leave Usta for another day and simply focus on protecting her charge.

That moment in the fog, only hours in the past, came back to the forefront of her mind. The soft sounds the girl had made as she took Saketa’s essence inside of herself, while exchanging it for that insidious chemical.

She went through the strengthening process again, reminding herself of the stakes, then strode off without a word or a glance to the girl.

She Shifted into the town. It was an imprecise move into unknown territory, but she did manage to emerge between two neighbouring residential houses. She sent her power out into the surrounding area, willing guns to not function, then strode out into the narrower street available to her and headed towards the factory.

She stayed on full alert. The odds seemed good that the hit squad had radioed in upon spotting her in the plain, and if not then surely Usta and whoever he had with him here had become suspicious by now. The only real question was whether he would try to flee and hide in the capital, or try to take her on with whatever he had left.

Saketa was ready for trigger bombs, mine-bots, the dry click of a sniper’s weapon, an ambush or simply some sort of tripwire. She almost wasn’t ready for nothing at all to happen until she stood before the factory itself.

There was a single main entrance, flanked by cargo containers that seemed to have been hurriedly abandoned in the evacuation. The wide double doors slid open slowly, pushed apart manually. Usta and one other man stood in the opening. Usta wore dull green hard armour marked by use, and still had that snap-blade sheathed on the small of his back. The other man wore a sturdy jumpsuit reinforced by some plates on the shoulders and limbs, as well as a pistol and a machete on his belt. Both wore identical helmets.

“Hello, Warden,” the mercenary-turned-recruiter said, stretching his drug-damaged face into a humourless grin. “I did say we weren’t done.”

She had already tested Usta in a fight, and so focused on the other man for a second, making a quick estimate of his abilities. There was danger in the air.

“So you did,” she then replied. “And I say again: Stand down and let yourself be taken in by the resistance while you still have a negotiating position.”

“No, Warden, no.” The man chuckled, with a slightly manic quality. “One of us dies here. Either way, you’re a failure.”

“And you?” she asked the other one. “Will you fight me for the sake of this man’s pride?”

“He doesn’t speak that,” Usta said. Then his grin changed, and Saketa knew from both his face and her own awareness that the time for talk was over.

In that instance she readied herself for a blast, or a javelin or hidden enemies. Something she could dodge. What came instead was very different.

The sonic attack hit her mind like a tsunami made of broken glass, stripping away thought and control. She thought she shouted out loud. The two men drew their blades and bolted at her, and she stumbled backwards.

Instinct let her parry Usta’s blow with a blind, clumsy swing of her sword. His chemically-enhanced strength threw her sideways and she hit one of the containers. It took focus to call on power, and so she had neither. The other man came at her, just as two more emerged from the doorway, bearing telescoping staves.

It was only the man’s lack of skill that let the machete slide off her sword and into nothing, and little more than luck that let her get between two of the containers. She had no balance and her muscles threatened to contract as she retreated. There were techniques for overcoming such an attack, but if she’d ever learned them her mind was too scrambled to remember.

She thought she heard someone shout something about going around, and tried to hurry out from between the two containers. Her shoulder hit the side of one, and her foot seemed to catch on something, but she made it.

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A blow struck her left shoulder blade, and for a moment she thought she’d been split open. But as the impact spun her around she saw one of the men with the staves. He pressed the attack, swinging for her head. She managed a parry, but was slow and clumsy and confused, and the impact threw her off balance again.

There were more containers, but none close enough to stop her stumbling and she simply fell to the ground as the machete man came at her. She managed a roll without coming to a stop, and came out of it more-or-less standing. She thrust out and having the longer weapon decided the outcome. Her sword hit him square in the throat.

Usta came into view, as did the other staff-man, as the first one came at her with another swing. She had time to pull her sword out of the mortally-wounded man, but not enough to parry. Her dodge was half successful and the metal staff grazed her skull rather than crack it.

It was enough for stars to explode into her world, on top of the confusion and pain already there from the sonic device. She swung drunkenly at the man and he fell back, more out of reflex than out of the blow posing any real threat to him.

Usta and the other staff-man got into each other’s way for a moment, then Usta pushed the smaller, weaker man out of the way and struck at her with the snap-blade. It came so close that for another moment she thought she’d been hit. She hopped out of his immediate reach, hoping to get out of the device’s range, hoping to be able to think.

One of the staff-men came at her with a thrust. It wasn’t a perfect blow, but it hit her in the sternum. She didn’t have the strength or focus remaining for another controlled roll. Instead she simply flopped backwards, onto her shoulder blades, then momentum and gravity just barely carried her on into a complete circle, and she landed on her knees and face.

Everything was noise, confusion, pain and vague instinct. She could only barely tell directions and her body was slow and stiff. She managed to get up to her knees and slash out. It held them back a moment, but she felt herself wobble as if on a precarious perch.

The three men before her were shaky images, hesitant but full of expectant energy. They would be on her in moments, but she couldn’t remember what to do.

“Saketa, get up!” shouted a desperate voice. “Get up! Fight!”

The compulsion moved her. With no defences in place it forced her into action and she bounded to her feet.

Usta came at her, but she sidestepped, her body acting on muscle memory, and she met one of the others. Her swing was delivered with ordinary human strength, but the blade still clove through his arm.

The other staff came at her head again, but this time it only brushed her hair as she dodged. Usta came at her with a strike. She managed a parry, but not a response before he slammed his body into hers, throwing her up against one of the containers.

Vanaka came running, hands over her ears, and slammed into the staff-man from behind. It was an imperfect attack, but her strength still sent him flying. Usta tried to shift to face both of them and Saketa seized upon her chance. She kicked at his knee, which wobbled him enough for a slash at his helmet. It split open, one side of it coming loose like a flap, and now the sonic attack reached his ears.

He grimaced and tried to hold the flap in place with one hand while fending her off with the other, but the awkwardness of it left her an easy opening and she swung her pommel up into his face. Then she slashed the helmet again, further loosening it on his head.

The staff-man was getting up, Vanaka was backing away, and Usta turned and ran as Saketa intercepted his one remaining fighter.

He had some skill, but he was weakened. Their weapons met only once before a thrust finished it.

Usta fled out of sight, heading towards the factory main entrance. Given a moment’s peace, Saketa sought to repel the attack on her brain. She looked around. The maimed staff-man was already going into shock, and Vanaka had taken the machete-man’s helmet and plopped it on her own head.

“I am sorry!” the girl said, averting her eyes from the dead and dying. “I know you said... I wanted to be brave, and you looked like you were in trouble, I just...”

The sonic attack cut off. Saketa turned and put a finger on Vanaka’s lips, putting a stop to her confused, semi-panicked chatter.

“Thank you. Now, as we planned.”

She went after Usta, starting with uneven steps then slowly picking up speed as she managed to draw on power. Once she stood before the yawning entrance she closed her eyes, rested the dull side of the sword against her forehead for one breath cycle, then Shifted.

It was a very short one; just enough to bypass any last-line defences they might have set up, and she materialised pretty much in the middle of the cargo delivery floor.

Usta stood a few steps to the left of the entrance, by a deactivated sonic device, and as she turned to face him he pulled an injector out of his neck. He roared as the fresh dose of Derro-red burned through his system, and attacked with monstrous ferocity.

He was fast and he was strong, and through the chemical abuse of his body he kept on attacking relentlessly, pushing himself far beyond normal. But there was little room for thought or tactics in the fire burning in his brain, and Saketa was just a little bit quicker. She simply kept evading, leading him around the open, empty floor where there was no chance of him boxing her in. And he was too focused on killing her to think to try to move the fight. He just attacked and attacked, following her around as if on a tether, screaming with mounting frustration.

It was a long and dangerous dance, and he did come close to hitting her a time or two. But abused or not, his system could only operate at this kind of capacity for so long. His attacks slowed, as did his feet, hastening things along as tiring him out became easier. She started striking back, slapping his armour with the flat of her blade when an easy opening presented itself.

Saketa had plenty of chances to kill him, but then that wasn’t the point of this. His attacks became wilder, desperate, as the fire subsided enough for him to see where this was headed. And of course that only made things easier still.

Once he was down to stiff, exhausted swings like an old man waving away flies, Saketa got closer and disarmed him. His blade clattered on the floor and she threw him down in the opposite direction. He surprised her somewhat with the kick he managed to send out, but she still evaded it.

He got up, wheezing and shaking, as she sheathed her sword. He tried coming in with a punch, but redirecting it was child’s play. He tried again, to the same effect, and only barely managed to stay on his feet as his own fading energy was turned against him.

Finally it looked like the last embers of it were going into simply keeping him upright. His legs shook. He managed one little shuffle in her direction, then stopped, and Saketa could tell it had almost sent him sprawling.

Usta stood still, glaring at her hatefully with bloodshot eyes, as the unavoidable truth set in. He had lost.

“I told you, Warden,” he said defiantly. “You’ll get nothing out of me. Meaner people have tried. And just try to drug me.”

He bared his ugly teeth in a grin.

“Not much affects my system anymore. So you’ll get nothing.”

“Well...” Saketa put her hands on her hips. “The waves of the universe were kind to me. I happened upon a solution.”

He didn’t notice Vanaka until she grabbed him from behind and sank her teeth into his neck. He thrashed about for a moment, but while she was no warrior she was very strong. The venom subdued him in short order, letting Vanaka bring both of them down to the floor.

Saketa silently observed as Vanaka drank in slow, dainty little sips, taking her time with the groaning, unresisting man. The girl’s forehead crinkled a bit at the taste of chemicals in the man’s blood, but she put up with it. And this was more about transferring into him than into her anyway.

Saketa felt a strange stab of envy, and firmly reminded herself that it was due to the venom.

Eventually Vanaka finished and withdrew her teeth. The mercenary lay still in her grip, looking dazed.

“The fleet...” she whispered into his ear. “Tell me where the fleet is.”