John Ringo: East of the Sun, West of the Moon

The metallic claw closed silently, from Herzer’s perspective, but he could hear the crunch and shriek of metal in his mind as Van Krief’s arm dropped, hanging by a thread of suit and tissue and blasting fluid into space. She writhed for a moment, the mace and gladius floating away from her, stuck in place by her mag-boots, and then stopped moving, standing still as a statue in the eternal void.

The three Durgar with Reyes had stumped forward as well and Herzer suddenly found himself facing six opponents. He lifted his buckler to catch a shot of acid and then tossed it to the side, slinging the material towards one of the scorpions. It hit and stuck and began to burn. As he blocked a claw with his mace, he saw the back of the scorpion explode outwards in a rush of vapor and internal parts.

The Durgar had retained their halberds and poked them forward at him as the scorpions spread out to either side. He ducked another shot of acid, batted away a claw, but couldn’t close to do any good.

He backed up, slightly, edging around the open airlock, then quickly flipped out a safety line, tossed it to the deck where the magnet, fortunately, stuck, unclamped the magnets on his boots and jumped off over the heads of the Durgar and scorpions.

One of the scorpions shot at him as he went overhead but they were still having trouble adjusting to microgravity. The jet of acid sailed well past him.

As he reached the end of the safety line, Herzer let himself stretch out to full extension, then slowly adjusted his body position so his feet were down, but pointed in the opposite direction, back towards where the magnetic clamp was still holding.

He hit on both feet, one boot momentarily coming loose but then he got it clamped back down. When he was solidly planted, he bent at the knees, bringing the safety line down to the level of the deck and pulling it sideways, hard.

The two scorpions had spun in place as he went overhead and as soon as he landed had started for his position, spreading out. Thus the line only caught one of them. The feet on one side sprang loose easily, but the others held for a moment. Herzer lifted up on the line, though, and the scorpion was kicked free to fly upwards into the deeps of space.

The Durgar were just starting to turn around as he got the line untangled from the scorpion’s legs — it was trying to clutch at it — and brought it back down. This time he stepped to the left, bringing the line along and knocking two of the Durgar flying. The third managed to get a hand on the line and disputed his control just long enough for the scorpion to close on the Blood Lord commander.

Herzer flipped a loop in the line, which managed to tangle one of the scorpion’s claws. He jerked on it, hoping to pick the arthropod up off the deck, but instead he popped his own boots free. He pulled down, dropping back to the deck as the partially entangled beast closed, but managed to get both boots clamped before it got to him.

He drew his mace and blocked both claws, looking for acid. It didn’t seem to be spitting so he thought it might have run out of juice, at least temporarily. After sparring with it for a moment, he drew his gladius, flipped the weapons around and held out the mace invitingly near the beast’s left claw.

The beast grabbed the mace, shaking it back and forth and trying to sever the steel shaft. Herzer drew the mace further to his left, bringing his body outside of the claw that held the mace, and cut downward with the gladius, hitting the joint seal of the claw, hard.

The joint immediately spouted fluids and popped open, releasing the mace. The scorpion started to spin in place to bring its tail into play but Herzer was having none of it. He slammed the released mace down on its brain-pan and the forward part of the scorpion opened up like a flower, gushing fluid into the vacuum.

The last Durgar was standing by the open door, watching him carefully, when a hand came out of the opening and grabbed it by both legs. Before it could react, the hands had lifted it off the deck and spun it off into the void.

Herzer looked around and realized that Reyes was gone. He spun fully around and spotted him. The Key-holder was using hand clamps to move along the hull, fast, headed downward.

“Megan, honey, where are you?” Herzer said, calmly.

“On the bottom, rear quadrant,” Megan said, breathlessly. “There’s supposed to be another hatch into Environmental down here. I think Reyes is following me.”

“He is,” Herzer said as Van Buskirk’s team clambered out of the hole. “Bus, change of plan, again. Cruz, you holding?”

“We’ve got it licked,” Cruz said, breathlessly. “Three guys in the airlock and they can’t get past.”

“Wish we’d figured that out at the beginning,” Herzer sighed. “Bus, cross the hull and attack the Durgar from behind,” Herzer said, unclamping his boots.

“Where are you going?” Cruz asked.

“After Reyes,” he said, bending at the knees and leaping upward.

“Megan Travante,” Reyes muttered. “I am so going to kill you. I’d like to kill you slow, but I’ll settle for killing you quick and taking your Key.”

He’d watched the tide of battle turn and decided that chasing the council member, whom he’d seen turn tail and run, was a better use of his time. He’d skirted the fight to the rear of the hatch and now was closing on the slowly walking Megan quickly. And she didn’t have a shred of help anywhere to be seen.

“I am so going to kill you,” Reyes muttered. “Maybe I’ll figure out a way to do it slow.”

The bound carried Herzer thirty meters towards Reyes, forward of the line he was taking over the curve of the hull. Herzer hit more softly this time and took his second line out, clamping it off and jumping off again.

It was a fast, and dangerous, way to cross the distance. If the clamp let go he’d go spinning off into the depths with no way home, a “flying Dutchman,” doomed to die when his air, or more likely icepacks, gave out.

The second line got him most of the way to Reyes and he pulled out his third and last, figuring the crossing speed of the council member and his own position, then pushed off, one last time.

Reyes felt himself pushed into the deck so hard he nearly lost his hold on the clamp, but his gravity protection field activated instantly, pushing away whatever it was that hit him.

Herzer spun off to the side, completely out of control, one hand on the safety line and the other scrambling for a magnet. As he spun past the deck he clamped the hand magnet to it, stopping his spin and nearly wrenching his arm out of its socket. Whatever Reyes had for protection, it wasn’t a personal protection field. It was very reactive to impact that was for sure.

He got to his feet, using the light line on the hand clamp as a safety line and confronted the council member, who was also standing. Reyes had pulled out a short sword like the Durgars and seemed fully prepared to use it. Of course, he also was covered by a sparkling field of… something. Herzer had previously fought people in PPFs and even energy-draining nannite fields. This one, though, hit back.

“It’s a gravity field you ignorant sword-swinger,” Reyes said to himself, reading the mind of his opponent as Herzer pulled out a mace. “Good luck getting through it. We’re back in Mother’s control area.”

Herzer stepped forward, swinging the mace cautiously. He closed, step by step, to the council member and then swung the mace in, lightly. It bounced back, hard and to the right as the field swirled more brightly, seeming to spin in a tornado of sparks around the armored figure of the council member.

Reyes followed up the blow with one of his own, the sword darting out like a striking cobra only to be blocked by Herzer’s buckler. It struck off the buckler in a shower of sparks and Reyes circled to the “downward” side in the direction of the retreating Megan.