Ryrik

"She's this way!" Amber yelled through the haze.

"How do you know?" I asked, unsure if she was right. We didn't have time for hunches, guesses, or anything in between. With Conii still on the move, time ticked to close the door on the trouble she created.

"The door!"

I blinked. Had Amber read my thoughts? I realized she pointed to a heavy gray permisteel door, set back into a shadowed corner of the hallway.

"I saw one just like it on the monitor," she said. "It didn"t click before, but one of the security monitors kept showing a plain door with the number 43 on it. They wouldn"t monitor it for no reason."

"This doesn't have a number," I answered. "So…"

Amber shook her head. "Nowhere else in the compound has a door like this. If there's a secret area where Conii keeps captives, wouldn't she use the same strong door for the entire area? It's got to be down this way, right?"

I shrugged. Good enough for me. And we didn't have any other leads.

"Then let's move," I said, grabbing a plasma pistol from one of Conii's deceased followers and blasting the lock open.

Amber grabbed a pistol for herself and checked to see if it was energized and ready for use. I would've loved to kiss the girl then and there, but Conii was under my skin and it was time to pluck her like the thorn she was.

I meant to end her once and for all, but Amber was right. We had a person to rescue. It was one of those moments I had to hope Celestia was looking out for us. A decision made in the ordinary way of things was a trade-off. One life for another.

That wasn't going to work. It was time to put a stop to Conii once and for all. But neither of us were willing to trade anything to do it. Certainly not a life.

No, Conii had to go. Would other rival gangs pop up in her place? Sure. They always did. That was the nature of the game and the rules of the life dedicated terms not everyone could live by. But looking over at the now orange-red head of the woman who stole my heart, I thought I had finally found someone who could handle those terms.

She was hot on the trail, leading me down to the bottom of the staircase where a keypad stood between us and answers. I shot the door with expert marksmanship, hitting the keypad with perfect diligence and causing the door to swing wide open for us.

"After you," I said with a gentlemanly flair. I couldn"t help myself. There was a boylike playfulness in hunting down the mark. My blood pumped with a rush of excitement, my nerves were cool with anticipation of how we might end this rival once and for all.

After a bit of a hike, Amber found the door. Number 43. She looked back at me before she banged on it. "Is anyone in there?"

"My God. Amber? Please tell me it's you." A weak voice came from the other side. Isa.

"It's me, Isa. We've come to get you out. Stand back and cover your ears." Amber locked eyes with me, dictating my mark on the door pad in question. I felt a pull deep within my groin with the way she trusted me to nail the mark without hurting her friend.

"Oh, Isa, are you hurt?" Amber softened into a perfect mother in the half-second that followed, soothing her friend and checking her cuts and bruises.

"It's just a bruise here and there," Isa said, gripping her wrists where the handcuffs used to be. "They mostly tortured me with shitty food."

Amber embraced her again, apparently happy that the ordeal didn"t break her friend"s spirit. I would have loved to have given them more time. But we didn't have that option.

"We need to move," I warned them, breaking them apart with my words. I saw my Amber darken with the order again. Something in her came to life. Like spirits I had only read about in ancient Vinduthi texts, she acted from somewhere deep, somewhere primal.

"We need to go further in," she said, pulling the side arm back from her hip. "This place is a maze. Conii will dive into this dump like the rat she is."

I'm no romantic, but she had me at the word ‘rat.' I swept her into my arms and planted a kiss on her that sent her back. Those three little words beckoned me from within. I had to withstand it. This victory would've been a short one if I let anything distract me from the task at hand.

"Let's get going," I said, bringing back the somber mood we needed to push through the next few minutes. "Leave her."

"I can't leave her."

"We can"t take her with us, she's too frail."

"Then I need to get her to safety!"

"Hey, guys," Isa interrupted. "Do either of you smell that?"

Amber turned to me with eyes the size of saucers. "Smoke!"

She turned and ran, with me hot on her heels. This time, I didn"t hold back. I put my full Vinduthi speed to work and sped down the hall towards the smell. Finally, we rounded a corner and saw the depths of Conii's madness.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I yelled through the black fog. "Are you trying to kill everyone on this station?"

I looked up and saw her standing over a trash can fire. Her eyes were streaming red. The Nazok woman was little more than a foe to me, but her desperation stood out a mile as she huddled over her last stand.

"I don't care!" she yelled. Amber looked over at me, as scared as I was. A fire left unattended on Thodos meant the end of Thodos. Every last soul would perish if we didn't stop it, and soon.

Amber tried the calm approach. "Now, Conii. I'm sure we can talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about," she screamed. "Come any closer and I'll douse this shit with the O2 line."

Panic set in as I saw what she meant. Conii wasn"t just getting rid of the data crystals and other evidence over a trash can fire. She'd hacked into the station mainframe and found an oxygen line. She held a rubber hose in one hand, ready to throw it into the flames. If she did, the blast from this station would be seen across the galaxy.

The data crystals popped and sparked as they burned. They were highly flammable and would burn even more brightly when given a supply of oxygen.

"Back up! I mean it. Don"t come any closer!" she screamed as I tried to shuffle my way further into the scene.

"I'll give you whatever you want," I tried to offer her. This was a crisis, and it called for a level head. I could be one when I needed to. It was time to do what I knew best and chameleon us out of this mess. After all, I had just met the girl. The girl.

Mine.

I wasn"t about to see her blown to smithereens.

"There has to be something you want, something I can get you," I said, my arms out, trying to soothe her.

"The Vinduthi took everything from me. How can you replace what you have already destroyed?"

"Maybe we can find a way." The intensity of the heat rose. We were running out of options.

"Can you bring him back to life, then? My only son?" She screamed, hurling more papers into the blaze. Well, hell.

Amber's eyes filled with panic. I had a matter of minutes before the room would be consumed by the flames.

"Ryrik," Amber yelled over the growing roar. "I hope you've got a plan for this."

"He doesn"t have a plan! He does not have anything. All these Vinduthi are hollow, heartless freaks!"

"The fuck they are," Amber said with real anger in her voice.

"They killed my boy. My husband. Back in the war, you Vinduthi took him out, and slashed his throat like he was nothing."

"You're wrong!" Amber argued, cutting the madwoman off. "There's a hell of a lot more to them than that. More than you'll ever know."

"Amber," I said, trying to gain her attention away from the spar. "S.O.S."

She ignored me. "And another thing. If he was in the war, how can you blame the Vinduthi for what happened? That's what makes it war, you know."

"He was doing his duty!" Conii argued back, throwing a huge volume into the flames. She looked around, out of paper. We were out of time.

"Amber!" I shouted, needing her attention in the nick of time. "Time to tap out!" Realization hit her face like a ton of bricks. I saw her tap her finger onto her hip three lines, three dashes. Three more and finally someone would know where we were.

"It's vibrating," she said, shocked. "I think they understood."

I grabbed her hand and used it to punch out the code for fire and where to find us. We didn"t have long, and while Conii stood there laughing and crying her way to an early death, I knew that I could finally kill her. I could because help was on the way. There was no stopping justice from meeting its end.

Conii looked down at her blaze, her eyes filled with tears as she stood there holding the hose. Any closer and life as we knew it would cease to be.

"Don't come any closer!" she yelled. "I'll do it! I will. I have nothing more to lose."

The words became true when the emergency valves popped from the ceiling and drenched us in fire retardant foam.

"Sorry, Conii," I said, smiling and raising my blaster toward her face. "You're right. You have nothing more." I fired the shot, the only shot, and her body crumpled straight down, collapsing like a log laden with ash.

Amber looked shocked as she put her hands out to receive the cool foam. The fire smoked but was a threat no more.

Just like Conii.

It was finally over.

But now that Amber was free, would she really stay with me?