((Authors Note: I'm sorry that I didn't mention it earlier, but comments are welcomed on the story as its developing. Please don't feel that you will insult me or interrupt what is happening by saying something in the thread. Thank you, Layna.))
Jolynn woke up from a sleep to find herself on the floor. She sat upright with a start, looking around incredulously and was instantly rewarded with a head rush, as her body vehemently opposed the new position it had been put in. After the momentary daze passed, she turned her head to the right and then to the left, and leaned forward placing both hands firmly on the floor. It was there. She could actually feel the cold steel(?), metal of some kind underneath her tingling fingertips. She stroked the floor almost lovingly, relishing in the rush of awareness flowing through her mind. At first she wasn’t able to comprehend that she could see her hands but soon she realized that there was a light coming into the room from off to her right.
She had to blink and clear her eyes when she looked directly at the blinding whiteness, but yes she could actually see the outline of a door partly cracked open. She tried to stand and was rewarded by her legs refusing to support her weight. She cracked her head on the metal floor as her limbs crumbled beneath her. Her eyes were focused on that door. ‘Something must have happened. They must have given up on me, or someone has come to rescue me’ were the thoughts that occurred to her as she began the slow crawl towards the door.
The light grew closer and closer, and she didn’t see anything beyond the frame other than it was cracked open, and swung outward into the room she occupied. She carefully reached out and pulled it further open. She paused after moving it an inch and heard nothing beyond, no sounds of fighting, no sighs of the dead and dying, nothing. She moved closer to the opening, and pulled the door open more and peered inside. She saw a plain table, and a single chair sitting inside the chamber.
With the light from inside, she could see that the room was made of the same cold metal as the torture chamber she still crawled in, but then the smells of hot food slapped her in the face. Her stomach immediately answered the sense of smell, and urged her ever onward danger be damned. She started to crawl into the room, and forced her legs underneath her torso. With her hands, she pushed herself up into a kneeling/sitting position, resting her butt on her heels. Now she could see the top of the low table, that there was, in fact, two plates of steaming hot food and a pitcher of water with an empty glass sitting beside it.
The sight caused her to blink a few times, and made her stomach nearly mutiny on her in its desire to get to that food. She dared to move her feet under her knees and get into a low crouching position, and she took a couple steps forward until she was right next to the chair. She slowly pulled herself up to be able to sit on the seat, using the table top for support and stared at the beautiful sight. All of her favorite dishes were laid out neatly, with a fork and knife and a pile of napkins. The very cold pitcher of water, sweat running down its side, and already had a pool of condensation on the table called out silently to her.
Jolynn carefully reached for the fork, expecting at any moment for that agonizing pain to be her reward, but it never came. With a vengeance, she tore into the plates in front of her only pausing momentarily to take a sip of water when her mouth became too dry to process the bite.
For long minutes, the only sound she heard was fork hitting plate, and the crunchy sounds of her chewing. Her stomach soon protested and let her know that she was full. As she sat back to sip on the glorious water, she slowly became aware of the slight humming around her. Fearing that her legs would repeat their unwillingness to hold her upright, she only turned in her chair and reached out for the wall behind her. Holding the cup in her right hand, she placed her left palm flat on the metal and was rewarded by feeling it vibrate beneath the nerves that had been bereft of feeling for so long.
“What’s this?” she spoke outloud, completely unaware she did so. ‘There’s a vibration? Why would there be a vibration? Are we still inside something that would vibrate?’ her beleaguered mind could not find the words to describe the sensation or understand her surroundings.
She set the cup down on the table, and reached out her right foot. Keeping a firm grip on the table, she placed a little of her weight on it. It held and there was a moment where her right leg slightly buckled but a quick push on the table stopped her from falling over. She brought her left foot next to her right, and shifted some of her weight. She was standing.
She felt a lot stronger with sustenance in her, water in her mouth, and strength flowing through her limbs. She tried to send a communication to her nano-bots, but they were completely unresponsive. As she looked around the metal room, she noticed that it wasn’t completely polished but neither was it totally dull and that she could make out her reflection. She leaned closer to the wall that she had touched and looked into her face.
On her forehead she noticed two metal discs, and reached up to touch them lightly with her fingertips. There was a slight edge to them, and she couldn’t tell if it was some sort of adhesive that kept them in place, or if her captors had bored into her skull and directly tied into her nervous system. She stared at them for long moments, feeling all around and thought, ‘This must be how they control that pain. Or what if this is somehow transmitting my thoughts and words out to them to see? If that’s the case, they should know I’m telling the truth by now.’ That thought didn’t comfort her much, especially since he had told her that no matter what he was going to kill her.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
She never heard the panels behind her open, nor did she feel the darts when they first entered her body but she soon felt the effects as the tranquilizer made her lose consciousness. ‘RUN! Jolynn!’ she heard herself think…
“RUN JOLYNN!!” Perin shouted at her.
Jolynn kept firing her bow at the horde of Hecklers. “You first!” she shouted back, “I’m not leaving your side!”
It had been an ambush. Perin, Jolynn and the rest of the squad had been following the routine patrol route, cleaning up the few Hecklers that had broken through the main lines of defense when they rounded a bend and got drawn in. They never suspected the others had been waiting for them to concentrate on their comrade until it was too late.
They had sent their position and situation back as soon as they realized what was happening, but reinforcements were minutes away. It was up to them to hold off the Hecklers until that help could arrive. Most of their team had already been wiped out, and only Jolynn, Perin and the soldier just newly assigned to their patrol were left standing.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Three bolts in rapid succession kept the closest Heckler from lifting the soldier in the air, and cracking his back. The air was a red haze of swirling nano-bots as she kept the healing flowing around them.
“Jolynn, I’m serious. We’ll be fine,” Perin carefully aimed and brought another Heckler down with a shot to the soft underside of its chin. “You need to go get those reinforcements and lead them here.”
Thwip! Jolynn shot another Heckler in the elbow. “No. I’m not letting any more of this team die. I’ll run when you run.”
“GAH! You are so stubborn,” Perin groaned as she kept up the careful shots on the slowly depleting horde. “There’s too many for us to handle by ourselves. You have to go for help!” Perin shouted at her.
“NO! I’m not leaving you,” Jolynn argued. Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! She tried firing a rapid succession but in arguing with Perin she had gotten distracted. She watched in horror as three Hecklers got a firm grip on the new soldier, and tore him limb from limb. ‘Belith protect him,’ she offered a quick prayer.
“It’s just us now,” Perin stated coldly.
“Yah. Lets do this,” Jolynn replied. “You and me darling. Until the end.”
The next several minutes were a flurry of activity. She healed Perin and herself until her vision blurred and her control on her nano-bots became spotty. Perin taking control of her own nano-bots and becoming an Enforcer temporarily. The Heckler bodies just piled up around them, and they kept climbing to the top of the pile. Jolynn lost count very fast of how many they had killed, when two of the Hecklers in front of them exploded into a million different pieces.
Two teams of reinforcements had arrived, and it was a timely execution by three of the Nano-Technicians that saved them. In less time than they had been out here, the rest of the horde was moped up. The other teams doctors came and saw to their wounds, since she had only been able to keep them mostly alive, and they were safely escorted back to Port Seven.
Jolynn smiled over at Perin, as she checked both of their dressings to ensure they would heal correctly and leaned over and kissed her softly just below her left eye. Perin’s sunglasses had been broken off at some point during the battle, and she stared unabashedly into those lovely greys. “I told you: You and me darling until the end,” Jolynn repeated.
“Yes baby. You and me until the end. You were amazing out there,” Perin said.
Jolynn blushed a deep red, and looked down at her hands the string of her bow having cut several deep gashes in her palms. “I had good incentive,” she told Perin, staring directly into her eyes…
Just before the darkness of unconsciousness completely took over, Jolynn thought she heard a very light airy voice speak to her: ‘I do protect you.’
Originally Posted by Trebius
but I think it be best if you made replies instead of posting a whole new thread for a next part. That way if later on someoen wants to read your story it would be easier to browse through. ]
