Ghosts

Maria

She opened her eyes, glanced at the sun, and turned toward her husband-

And started to cry, because he was not there, had not been there for months, would never be there again.

A muted beep from the console of the Predator alerted her. Mechanically as the Cybrids she hunted, she turned toward it, her tears forgotten for the moment, her black eyes focused, alert.

Cybrid, she thought, and pressed the control that would activate the Predator's cloaking device. She sat up, wrapped her fingers around the control stick, and shoved it forward.

A ghost slipped silently from the crevasse, silent in Mercury's vacuum, and arced around the crater rim into the night.

Fifteen minutes later a single flash lit the darkness. A single black shadow in the distance darkened a small patch of the plain. A brown boulder sat on the horizon, blocking the setting sun. Was that a hint of motion? Surely not.

Half an hour later the rock had drifted into the shadow of a small cliff, and was again motionless, invisible.

Inside the golden-brown Predator, she cried, her sobs undisturbed by the console. She had it shut off. A Shepard could come over the cliff and it probably would never see her. And if it did and she died in a hail of lead slugs as she cried she would pay it no mind. Better to die.

One hand is clenched around a jagged chunk of metal, a piece of an Executioner's leg servo controllers, charred, blackened. Her other hand rests palm-up on the console, a small piece of thick plastic laid gently in it, a picture of her husband and daughter silhouetted against the Mercurian sun.

She falls asleep.

-----

A flash of light too bright to be the second sunset awakens her. Sleep banished she sits up and activates the cloak, arms the missiles she scavenged off the Executioners she as destroyed, powers up the engine.

A vehicle approaches, tall, slender, fast. Not a Seeker, not a Goad. A Talon? she thinks?

She shakes her head, locks the missiles on it. Impossible. All are dead. All that remains is the Cybrids. She is dead too though her body does not lay ripped apart by explosive decompression beside her husband and daughter.

Closer she comes to the vehicle, charging her turbine boosters for extra speed as she approaches. A scream echoes through her speaker, drowned out by an explosion and a crash of metal on metal.

The Talon lays battered on the ground, its pilot wounded but alive.

The Predator turns, slips away into the darkness, silent, invisible.

-----

"I am telling you sir, I was attacked! No, sir, I know there are no Cybrids in that sector! It just hit me out of nowhere!"

The general gazed at the young pilot with the bandaged head, steeples his fingers.

A knock sounds at the door. A young woman steps in, hands the general a paper, leaves.

"You were attacked by a Predator based at the Antipode Medical Response Station," he notes. "With brown paint..."

"Why would she attack me? We're here to rescue her!"

"Do you think after eight months of doing nothing but fighting Cybrids she pays any attention to your vehicle profile anymore?"

The young pilot does not answer.

"The place you were attacked is only ten kilometers away, true?"

"Yes sir."

"Go back there, and wait."

The pilot opens his mouth to speak, changes his mind.

-----

"Sandal One to Sandal Three," the pilot's wingmate says. "Getting a signature from that cliff over there."

The two Talons in the crater stand, trot northward, approach the cliff.

-----

She freezes, watches the yellow specks on the horizon with narrowed eyes, and crouches gracefully behind a large rock. She stares at the Talons for a moment, then turns and returns to the Predator.

-----

"Amazing!" Sandal One says. "Where did all these come from? His wingmate just stops and stares around the cavern in disbelief.

Three Apocalypses line one side of the cavern, one black, one white, and one a mottled brown matching the Mercurian rock. Three Basilisks sit in the center, the same colors. A Disrupter is in a corner on the opposite side, flanked by a jet-black Predator.

Junk is piled against the back wall, metal, ceramic, vehicle components, weaponry. Cybrid weapons hang from some of the vehicles. Even the green paneling of a heavy blaster graces one Apocalypse. Heavy blast cannon shells surround the junk pile.

"This is creepy. Let's get out of here and have the task force recover-"

Movement. A shadow crosses the back wall.

A pause. Sandal Three dismisses the brief lapse, laughs softly to himself at his nervousness.

The Talons turn back toward the entrance.

A sleek gold-brown Predator blocks it, weapons locked.

The cockpit opens. A figure in black suit jumps out onto the rock.

A woman's voice, soft, sad, whispers over the communications channel in soft Spanish. "You are too late... leave me..."

Sandal One says in bad Spanish, "But we need to get you out of here. There are Cybrids everywhere!"

"There have been Cybrids everywhere for a long time. If I die here, well. If I live, well. This is my home, and it is all I have left. You are too late to save anything I wanted saved."

Sandal One watches her, catches the briefest glimpse of her face before she turns away.

He does not notice her get in the Predator and drive away. He sits motionless in the Talon, haunted by the pain in the ghost's eyes...

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