A Soldier For All Seasons Ch. 13

Two punch. Nate stepped left and forward, slamming his left hand up with as much force as he could. Straight up through Olgev's chin, uppercutting him up and out.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Nate gaped with awe. "I can't believe that worked. Isabelle, you're the best."

"Well, one does try. Down the stairs again."

As the VIP area exited back onto the club floor, Nate saw a flash of pink hair. For a moment, he thought it was Cora, but then the guy stood up. All two hundred and fifty pounds of him. He hadn't spotted him yet but the man was coming around the side of the bar counter, about to fire on the girls.

"Calculating," started Isabelle. "Pink hair. Partial keyword matched to audio files as you walked down the tunnel toward the kitchen. Audio muffled by door, attempting audio cleanup. Chef states jovially 'did you see Hugo lost that bet and had to dye his hair pink?'" Isabelle almost shouted in his mind. "Hugo, his name is Hugo!"

"Hugo, it's me!" Nate cried out suddenly, making the man stop and turn. "Hugo, what the hell is going on, Hugo?"

The man scowled, rifle rising. Then, his features blanked, his knees buckling. Something pincered through his chest. A thin razor-sharp blade pulled out — it refolded into Cora's forearm as Hugo slumped to the ground.

She eyed him curiously. "How the fuck did you know his name was Hugo?"

Nate's eyes were still on the rapier-blade that had just popped out and back into her arm, his smile awkward. "Oh, me and Hugo were tight. Love pink hair."

"Nate!" Ana jumped into him, squeezing him tight, hand pressed to her heart. "I was so worried!"

"I'm okay, sweetheart. Good work with the molotovs, you bought me so much time." He stroked her back. "We need to move fast, though."

She pulled back, eyes glistening, smile shaky. "Let's go quick, you need a medic."

They came out the way they came in, out of the pink forest. It was eerily empty, the mobs having long since flown away. On the pier, only their ship remained.

And one other.

"A little predictable, don't you think, Mateo?"

"I do think so, Matías."

The twins. They looked mean. Two identical bull-like grunts. Ex-Fed, perhaps, with the popular military buzzcuts and the same type of boots that Feds loved. One of them had a nose-ring, Mateo. The other had a shitty face tattoo.

"Ana, go and get the engine started, will you?"

"But—"

"No buts. Go." Nate ordered. The Lunari took off for the ship and the twins let her.

"Not going to order me, huh?" Cora limbered up at his side.

"You don't look like the kind of girl who takes orders."

"I'm not." She grinned. "I do like a tussle, especially when the guy who took a bullet for me asks nicely."

"Nose ring or face ink?"

Cora hummed. "Face ink."

"Isabelle?"

"Mateo Lopez, social media account linked to a gaming handle. Gaming handle is signed up to several porn sites, mainly enjoys tentacle porn."

"How the fuck does that help me?" Mateo put his head down and charged at him. Nate took half a second to contemplate it and then dove out of the way, landing heavily in the dirt of the fake forest. Beside him, the fairy lights lined the tree trunk. Nate pulled them out and held them like a noose.

"It doesn't." Isabelle admitted. "I just thought it was funny."

Mateo charged again and Nate failed to loop his fairy-lights around the man's neck as he was picked up bodily and smacked against the tree trunk.

"Oof." Nate gasped for breath before a meaty punch sent him looking left and then another sent him looking right. His eyes were swelling, vision swimming, blurry colors replacing the shape his opponent should have been.

Isabelle tried to help him, replacing those colors with the image of the man, but seeing the huge man didn't help. There were no weaknesses. There were only muscles and anger and...the nose-ring.

Mateo tried to headbutt him and Nate hooked his finger through the ring and pulled hard. The ring came out along with a gush of blood and flesh.

"Arrrgh!" Mateo cried, clutching his face. Nate hooked the ring onto his finger, a make-shift set of brass knuckles, and hit him with his best one-two. The man didn't go down but he didn't get back up either.

A plasma blast melted the man's head and Nate looked up in alarm to see Ana carrying a blaster she'd taken from the ship. He grinned, the taste of copper in his mouth.

One down, one left.

But Cora wrestled with Matías on the ground and there wasn't a clean shot. She wasn't winning but Matías was struggling to land a hard shot with how much of her was replaced by cybernetics. A hit to the stomach did nothing. Strangling her did nothing, her whole neck made out of some absurdly strong metal.

Nate thought quickly. "Hey, Matías, your brother is dead."

The man looked up, eyes catching sight of his dead brother. His face reddened, eyes bulging and Nate winced as he realized the man had triggered a mod. Probably a berserk mod, which pumped testosterone and adrenaline into your stream with a single thought of a keyworded sentence.

"I will rip the skin from your bones, I will fuck your whores, I will—"

Cora's hand came up under his chin and from her metal knuckles extended sharp bone-white claws, straight into his skull. With a rip and a nasty fleshy sound, she tore his gloopy brain out through his chin.

Ana vomited instantly.

Nate held his stomach's contents in, just. "Fuck, Cora."

"Sorry." She didn't sound sorry at all, watching her handiwork bleed onto the tarmac of the ship's pier. Her claws slowly retracted.

Cora stood up with unsteady legs, wiping her bloody knuckles on her top. "So—" She tottered back, wobbly, laughing as the rush left her. She wiped the sweat off her brow. "Do you want to see my evidence on the Judge?"