The Best of All of Us

Bits of shrapnel from the gynoid’s head had embedded themselves in Lea’s side. It was a miracle that she had been able to hold herself together as the ship nearly shook itself apart. But that was Lea: tougher than anyone, always bearing whatever hardships life threw at her alone, determined to do whatever was necessary.

“Try not to move,” I told her. “I’ll see if there’s a first-aid kit. Just hang on until we reach the Federation.” I did my best to sound calm, but I knew she was losing blood too fast.

“We’re starting to sink. The remaining engine can’t keep us afloat much longer. Help me up so I can land the ship safely, and then you have to run. It won’t be long before they’re after us.”

“No, you need to—”

“Mission comes first. You stopped me from killing the maid; I gotta stop you from tryin’ to save me. It’s cruel, but it’s reality.”

I choked back my rebuttal. She was right. Placing an arm beneath hers, I helped her to stand. From our vantage, we could see the Federation’s dome, but it was a tiny speck on the horizon. The dome we had just left was still close enough that we could see the dock’s gate roll open and three transports speed out after us.

Lea pointed ahead at a very large group of sickly-looking, bulbous purple trees in the distance. “That forest stretches close to the Federation, and they can’t bring vehicles in. I’ll put her down and then hold them off as long as I can. You’re a good runner. I know you’ll make it.”

Tears were running down my cheeks as she spoke. “Lea, I’m sorry.”

“No, Sprout, I’m sorry. I was wrong to try to change ya, and you were right to stay my hand. Killin’ the maid woulda made me as bad as them. Now that my end is near, I’m happy that I can go out with a clean conscience, knowin’ I did my best to save this sad, broken world of ours.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my sleeve. “That mean you don’t hate humans anymore?”

“No, I’ll still hate ‘em ‘till my dyin’ breath, but now that I've accepted my own end, I can finally see how much it controlled me. Maybe if I had been able to let go of it, like Apollo, we wouldn’t have split up.” She grunted as she spun the wheel. “There’s one human I could never bring myself to hate, though, and she’s standin’ right next to me.”

“Lea, I–”

“Let me finish. We ain’t got much time left. Don’t make the same mistake I did and let the others define your life. Take the best of us with you, but don’t let anyone tell you who you are.” Branches snapped as the bottom of the yacht sank into the forest, and then, with a jolt, the last engine shut off and the ship came to a stop. “Go! Save this broken world for me.”

With the pistol in one hand and the suitcase in the other, I bolted. Just before I jumped off the deck, I took one last look back at her. She was limping toward the bow of the ship, using the rifle as a cane to support her weight.

“I love you, Lea,” I shouted as I jumped from the ship, past the gynoid chassis that was still miraculously clinging to the side. Lea responded not with words, but with the whine of the coils and the buzz of the discharge as she fired at the transports pursuing us.

I ran and I ran and I ran, all the while straining my ears. As long as I could hear Lea’s gun amidst the exchange of gunfire, I knew she was alive, but after mere minutes, her gun fell silent. I tried to tell myself that I was just too far away, or she had fainted and would be rescued, but in my gut, I knew the truth.

Still, I ran as fast as I could. Without the others to slow me down, I thought I could run all the way to the Federation before they caught up.

But although I could no longer hear Lea, I could hear ten footsteps gradually gaining on me. They were still half a kilometer back, but they would eventually catch up to me. I would need to fight, but I was outnumbered. It would only take a single mistake, a single bullet, to do me in. Maybe if I dropped the suitcase, they’d stop chasing me; then I could get to the Federation and call for reinforcements to hunt them down.

No, they might detonate the nuke then and there. I couldn’t let them have it. There was no room for mistakes. I needed to stop seeing them as my predators and start seeing them as my prey.

Nothing grew in this forest except these trees, leaving few hiding places, but there was a grove where the trees grew closer together than usual to the east. It was still early in the day, and the sun shone bright from that direction.

Jumping and climbing up the trees, I nestled the suitcase in a spot I hoped would be easy for my pursuers to see, but difficult for them to climb to, then leapt across the branches into the thicker grove. Mere minutes later, ten men in protective suits came into sight, running through the forest. Just as I hoped, one of them pointed to the suitcase, and they came to a halt.

Six of them held what appeared to be rifles looted from the Futarchy police, but one of them carried a powerspear from the village. One of the unarmed men started climbing the tree while the others started to fan out to guard him, but I didn’t give them a chance to get into position.

From my perch atop a tree, I fired my pistol twice, hitting the climber in the back but missing the powerspear wielder. Luckily, I hit the man behind him. That was two down.

They returned fire, of course, but they were blinded by the sun as they looked up in my direction, and I was already on the ground, circling to a new position. While they were still recovering from their temporary blindness, I fired three more shots from the ground and then doubled back the way I came. I heard two more fall. Hiding behind a particularly thick trunk, I couldn’t see who I had downed.

Bullets whizzed through the forest to my right, where my last shots had come from. I scrambled up the tree and made my way toward the group, hoping they would expect me to continue circling around.

My gambit paid off, and they were caught by surprise as I fell on one of the men and sunk my fangs into his throat. Sparing no thought for their comrade, they fired at me, but I used him as a human shield and fired back with my pistol. I killed one of the men, but then the powerspear wielder activated the deflection field, causing my next shot to veer off course.

That was a mistake. Their guns were just as useless within the deflection field. With nothing to fear from them, I tucked my pistol into the back of my skirt and tossed the body directly at the spear. As expected, he tried to use the spear as a bat to deflect the oncoming corpse, and that gave me an opening to rush in and grab the spear.

In a contest of pure strength, I would have lost the struggle, but with one hand, I sank my claws into his neck. With a yelp, he released the spear just as the other men were moving in to grab me. In the nick of time, I jumped backward, causing the men to crash into each other.

It was over. I changed the spear to polearm mode by twisting the shaft. A large plasma blade flared to life at the tip, and I swung it in a wide arc. Light trailed behind it as it cut through the two closest men from behind. The others tried to run, but I pounced on them, and after two more swings, I stood beneath the suitcase, ten corpses at my feet.

I had won. It wasn’t just my victory; it was our victory. Just as Lea had said, I had taken the best from each of them. I was aggressive like Apollo, deceptive like Oliver, a sharpshooter like Lea, and I brought the final ingredient: smarts.

“Not bad, kitten.” My blood froze, and my hair stood on end. I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard him approach at all, even though I had been straining my ears to listen for threats.

I still couldn’t hear his footsteps as Ares stepped out from behind a tree.