Bloody enough! It's bloody enough!

[old_csat]

Blackout

The power went out. It took a second for that to register, given that both he and Isander were somewhat ... occupied ... at the time. The power went out. Everything went dark, everything went suddenly silent, and for a second Dowling wondered if his beloved had snuck a crest up on him, but no. He wasn't close to that yet, and the blackness remained, lit only by the quiet glow of Isander's eyes and the luminescence of the soft-metals in his chest cavity. Dowling blinked a bit, waiting for the pleasure to edge back long enough for his brain to boot up, and then froze.

The power went out. Except the power never went out. They had about sixteen back-ups in place, for phranti's sake! The power couldn't go out.

Not unless someone went to the trouble to make it.

{Beloved?} A faint hum of connection, Isander soft and whispering in his mind, and already their fingers were fumbling quietly together over his exposed interior, sealing the plating back up, Dowling's frantic, Isander's more controlled but no less rushed. {Where are they, Dowling?}

{Node. Have to cut the node, to get the first three back-ups down. Bloody hell, 'sander, they're in our bloody home!} In their home, on their damned moon. In their home. Revulsion and fury clawed up his throat, fighting to cover the old, old fears. In the darkness, Isander's cooling fingers reached out to cup his cheek for a brief moment, unerring comfort, his beloved knowing exactly where he was, a presence as much part of him as anything.

{I know, beloved,} he sent, chill fury. {I know. And they will pay for it!} And though he shivered with it, Dowling had never been so happy to feel his beloved's anger. Anger covered a multitude of fears, and in that moment, all of his were clamouring desperately for attention he couldn't afford to give them.

They scrambled to their feet, moving in unison, still more than half-melded from their loving, bodies moving according to joint will more than independent thought. Didn't matter. In this, they were perfectly in accord, practice honed over long years. When in danger, the first thing they both knew to do.

Run.

It was loud. Isander wasn't meant for stealth, never had been, and Dowling had always been clumsy in fear. But it was fast, too, and directed by a great deal more knowledge than whoever hunted them in the dark. This was their home, after all. And as they ran, Isander reached out to the few semi-aware machines they shared their moon with, sleepy, automated things that nevertheless were about to prove very, very useful indeed. For his part, Dowling dropped his mind back to that fuzzy half-place between machine and human, and let it loose, just a little. Didn't have to be far. Since the Gestalt, the Light was always there. It would never fully leave.

{Five, beloved,} he sent, skidding around a corner. {Human. All behind, near the ship port.} He stopped, gagged, fear sliding slippery inside his mind, reeling away from the hammer of their thoughts, from the blaze of hate inside the Light, and on sheer instinct he slammed back into machine-thought, cutting off the sensation, slipping back into Isander's mind like it was the only safe place in existence. Mostly because it was, for him. {Hell. Damn buggering phranti, 'sander, they want ...} He cut off, on the edge of screaming, and felt Isander curl around his mind, felt his beloved grab him and hold him and keep him back from the abyss, from the terror that begged leave to curl on the floor and scream.

{Doesn't matter, beloved. Dowlinglove, doesn't matter.} Fierce, in his mind. Furious. Gentle. {Never touch you, touch us. Never!} The thought rolled like liquid fury, like white fire, and Isander activated the sleeping-'chines, one quick, clear call of waking, and the night lit up once more, a white haze spreading, a ringing in the ears, and Dowling felt his augments compensate, felt Isander's systems click to counter. Their own programming, this. Poison and antidote. A trap. This was their home, yes. But they had been running for a very long time.

Gasping as they rolled sideways, balance swerving even with the defenses, Dowling struggled to pull some courage back together, pull up some shreds of will long enough to let himself feel the Light again, let himself look for them. Isander helped him, as much as he could, knowing that as soon as Dowling slipped back towards human his own presence would fade. Like a letting-go, like a farewell, every time. It scared the shit out of him. Scared him more than dying, more than the cradles, more than the Light. Isander faded, and he wanted to scream. But he found them. He found them failing, found them reeling, hate falling away, lost to confusion, then haze, then rolling blackness. Little bursts of pain, as they hit the ground, but he only barely registered them, already running again, back to machine, back to Isander.

{Down! Downdowndown, 'sander, they're down! Got 'em! Got 'em!} And then Isander was turning, catching him by the arm, pulling him along as he ran back the way they'd come, back towards the enemy, and now Isander was furious. Now he was incandescent. Now there was no danger, and he was in the mood to kill! Dowling gasped, reeling along behind, fear clamouring still, and then they were on the first of them, the first intruders. Two bodies in the hall, bare outlines in the glare of Isander's eyes as the pair of them skidded to a halt above them.

Brovonoi. They were Brovonoi. Dowling felt sick.

{Why?} he whispered. {Dammit, Isander. Why?} The slippery edge of memory crept forward, the thoughts he had touched so briefly, so lurid in the Light, and he closed his eyes, latching onto Isander's arm, hybrid hands clamping down with more strength that organics should really have, but Isander didn't complain. Didn't make a sound, just pulled him close, pulled him in. Metal dented, and stained a little with blood from desperate fingers.

{Don't know, love. Don't know. Don't care. Don't care!} But the vehemence was ebbing, something older taking its place. Something tired. Damn them anyway. This was supposed to be their home. {What the hell do we do now, Dowling? What the hell do we do now?} He'd never heard Isander so tired. Not even on Earth, not even at the last. Damn it all anyway. How many times were the kratchjec vudjai going to make them run?

No more, he decided suddenly. No bloody more. He turned to his beloved, fierce in the blackness, and he knew Isander could see him, knew too that even if he couldn't he'd still know, still feel. Feel Dowling's rage, his sudden white determination. He'd been running all his life, Dowling, and he was good at it. But push came to shove, he was also the damned stubbornest csat going, and it was high time they told the galaxy to sod the hell off!

{We get the power up,} he sent, quietly. {We get these kratchjec vudjai off our moon, we get the power up, and we get the sleepers active. All of them. And then ... we go Memoriam. We go invisible, undetectable, and damn well pissed off! And then we show them what the hell korundai means!}

They'd been learning a long time. Gestalt, Memoriam, Integration. Earth, Duality. 300 years. Learning about running and fighting and fearing. Learning about building, and hiding, and breaking until they couldn't be broken anymore. They'd learned that they could destroy worlds if they had to, let whole civilisations fall, just to keep each other safe. They'd learned that galaxies could go hang, just for one more day together. Learning to be abominations. They'd learned all that. And now, Dowling was just about ready to let all that learning loose. To use it.

Isander stared at him, his mind suddenly hazy around the edges in shock, sheer disbelief. Never before, Dowling knew. Never before had he been the one to fight, to strike. Never before had the grudge been his. But then ... they'd never come to his home, before. He'd never had a home, before. Everything just a step along the road, from that first moment in the Asylum when he knew this robot, this man, was his destiny. Everything just a way to survive and touch his beloved, in all the ways that mattered, until they could just go away together, just be. And for a little while, for these last few years ... he'd had that. He'd Isander, in every and all ways. He'd had a home to share with him, a place to be away from them all and just love. He'd had it, and he'd loved it.

And now, the damned galaxy had taken that. Had decided not to let them alone. Had hunted them, had hurt them. Had made Isander tired, had made Isander old. Had come to their own home, their home, and hunted them in the dark. Well, bugger that. Just bugger it. Dowling had destroyed a world just by running away, once upon a time. Isander had broken a planet with a word in the right ear, in one moment of fury. Did these bloody kratchjec vudjai really think they could hound korundai without cost?

{Isander. Beloved. I've had enough. I've had bloody enough. They don't touch us again. They don't touch us!}

And then, in the darkness of their breached fortress, in the blackness of their home, Isander nodded. And smiled. That old, cold smile, the smile of an object become a person despite all wishes, the smile of a jailor freeing his prisoner, the smile of a lover avenging his fallen mate. Isander's smile, from all the black times in their lives. And damn if it wasn't the most beautiful thing Dowling had ever seen.

{No,} Isander purred, cool and burning in his soul. {No, they do not. Not again. Never again. Dowling, beloved. They do not touch us again.}

Damn bloody straight!

Comments

[sumerian_lion]

Territory, pridelands, kingdom...

All part of the reason to fight, always.

Always.