Posted by Ed on January 06, 2001 at 14:51:00:
It was early dusk when I finally saw her. The rocket pod was about to be launched into space, sending 1,000 much-needed clone warriors to Omicron 9. I hear the fighting is pretty bad up there. I knew she was skulking around the compound long before I caught her silhouette in the corner of my eye. I’d never seen combat, sir, so you can understand my excitement. I come from a pure strain of warrior stock. You can’t imagine my disappointment when my birthing group was assigned to guard duty.
At first I didn’t believe it. I passed it off to wishful thinking. None of her kind had penetrated so far into our space before. It was only later that we found her ship, crash-landed a few clicks away. It was dumb luck she crashed so close to us. Or tragic, I guess. Like I said, I didn’t believe it at first, but I come from good stock, so I kept my eyes peeled. Sure enough I saw her again, close enough to get a good look.
She was wearing only a meager pilot’s uniform, silver reflective stuff that we’d encountered before. It’s stronger than steel. I saw that first, glinting in the dying sunlight against her tanned skin. Her long, wavy hair hung down her shoulders and back, covering her slightly against the dusk chill. Her eyes were huge. I could see her bare shoulders rising and falling even from my distance. She was panting from fear and exhaustion.
For a long while I just watched her from my post, crouching in my chameleon suit. I watched as she slipped through the woods behind the launch pad. In one hand she clutched a tiny ion-blaster. Pilots usually have no need for sidearms. She pressed herself against trees and peeked around, like a doe. Her heavy breath made mist in the air. She was coming towards me, and for the longest time I just watched her, entranced. She tripped over a root, giving a little yelp of surprise, and I twitched in some bizarre instinct to help her. She braced a hand against a nearby tree and I shook the urge off, reminding myself of the bloody battles of Tau Station 5 and New Ganamede.
That was foolish, and I gave away my presence then. Her head snapped up immediately, and I froze in panic. I could hear her breathing. I could see the soft brown of her eyes. She was young. Slender limbed, but athletic. Her hair rippled in a short breeze, and she shivered against it.
Then she sprinted forward, running right past me onto the launch pad. The rocket was still being primed for launch, and she pressed her bare back against the slick, metallic surface. Her eyes scanned, left and right, but she couldn’t see anyone. She clutched her blaster until her hand was white.
I’m just a lowly sentry. We have no weapons, only a radio to send in strike coordinates. I didn’t want to call her in, tell that harsh computer voice about her.
I wanted her for myself.
Her trachea rose for a moment as she gulped. Her instincts were speaking to her as well. It was time I introduced myself.
From my quiet hiding spot I exploded out of the foliage. With several bounded steps I crossed the plain between us before she had even pivoted in my direction. She swung her ion blaster out toward me as if in slow motion. Her hair flew outwards as she spun, like a spray of golden water. I had to get to her before she pulled that trigger, but time seemed to thicken into mud as I crossed that last inch to reach her.
My body crashed into hers and time went into overdrive. She grunted as her back hit the ground and I landed heavily on top of her. She was so much smaller than me. I hadn’t realized before.
I sat atop her and watched her try to collect her bearings. The feeling of her below me felt right somehow, but I didn’t know why. I was driven to do something, but I didn’t know what. Uncontrollable need raged through my veins and she began to shift beneath me. I snapped. In the brief moments that she remained stunned and pinned, I did the only thing I knew how to do: I leaned over, took her throat in both hands, and squeezed as hard as I could.
Her body tightened instantly as the shock of what I was doing hit her. Her hands gripped mine and pulled with desperate force. I was so close to her, I could see her pain, her revulsion at what was happening in those big brown eyes. She pried at my hands, but I knew what I had to do. I had to squeeze her neck until she fought no more.
My fingers sunk deep into the soft flesh of her throat. Every moral-conditioning class I had taken was screaming that this was wrong, but it felt that my whole reason for being, at that moment, was to squeeze her tender neck. I squeezed with every ounce of force in my body. My forearms burned with the effort after a few seconds, but I only squeezed harder.
Meanwhile, I could feel her thrashing wildly against me. Her whole body twisted and bucked beneath me, as much trying to fight me as writhing in the pain. She made horrible gagging noises as she tried to cry out, but could not push the air past my grip. The only other sounds were my heavy breathing, and the soft rustling of her struggles.
I could feel her body beneath me, her muscles contracting, her heart hammering in her chest. Her skin was slick with sweat, and sticky. Her hands pushed against my chest. I leaned my face close to hers, looking into the twin windows of her pain. Her eyes were glazing over, lost in the pain, and the darkness slowly crawling over her. Her mouth gaped wide, pink tongue slowly pushing past her plumb, strained lips. As absolutely as I strangled her, so to did she labor to suck in breath. I breathed air she couldn’t inhale into her mouth, touched my lips to hers. I could feel myself harden against her crotch. Her legs kicked out to either side of me, mechanically, purposelessly.
And still I squeezed. My hands were prickling, buried in her neck, a noose of flesh and bone. Her hands could no longer lift themselves to hit me. They weakly clutched my wrists, clammy and limp.
Her flushed cheek was smooth and hot against my face. I loved her. I could feel her start to slip away. I wanted that.
I rose up, leaning my whole weight down on my hands, pressing down on her neck with every fiber of my soul. The pressure was so immense that I felt like I would burst. There was nothing she could do. She trembled and twitched, her eyelids fluttered as her eyes rolled back.
She gurgled a bit, twitched a few last times, a long raspy sigh. For one infinite second she hung in the balance.
I could feel her fingertips lightly trace the back of my hand as they slid away and fell to the ground to either side of her. Her eyes were half closed, staring dimly into nothingness. She lay still beneath me. Everywhere she was limp and relaxed beneath me. Eternally still. She was dead.
Then I exploded.
That is the only way I can describe it.
Afterwards, when I slowly released her neck, my fingers peeling away from her skin. Her head titled loosely to the side from my disturbance, but she made no reaction. Like clay, she only moved by my touch.
Thoroughly exhausted, I laid panting and sweating across her body. I could still feel her lingering heat, the sweat that clung to her smooth skin. I ran my hands through her thick, disheveled hair and stared into her blank eyes.
For millennia we have existed by ourselves, living on our own worlds, cloning our own young, building our own civilizations without the Feems. We have fought them bitterly whenever they have entered our space. As a warrior cloned from the best of warrior stock, I understand this intrinsically.
Yet, as I stared into those blank eyes, into that pale, gaping, beautiful face, I couldn’t help but wonder if there had once been a better way.