Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

back inside, I’m no use to anyone till I’ve got my breath back.” Hazel helped him stumble over to the nearest hole in the wall. The remaining Hadenmen gave them both plenty of room.
    Bonnie Bedlam danced among the Hadenmen, sudden death on two legs. Every blow was a killing blow, and she never bothered with a defense. When she was cut or hurt she just laughed aloud, glorying in the rush of healing flesh. Not for her the honor of one-on-one combat, and if she’d heard of fair play, it was only to laugh at it. She came and went, her sword flashing out of nowhere to pierce an undefended side or a turned back. Bonnie Bedlam was a fighter, not a warrior, and had no time at all for honor. It just got in the way. She cut down the enemy with vicious, heartless attacks, and ignored the cries for help or support from the lepers fighting around her. She wasn’t there to be anyone’s shield or partner. Her powers and abilities made her far more vital to the Mission’s defense than any damn fool colonist who needed his hand held. Midnight Blue wielded her ax with both hands, lopping off heads and limbs with her inhuman strength. Hadenmen blood struck her again and again, like an invigorating shower, and she wore it proudly. She roared the sacred chants of her warrior order, cutting her way through the battle like a forester opening up a new path in a crowded wood. Hadenmen fell almost helplessly before her cold, focused anger, and did not rise again. She took fierce blows and wounds without flinching, ignoring or rising above the pain in her battle fury. Most of her wounds closed almost immediately, and for those that took a little longer, she paid them no heed. She fought at the head of a small group of lepers, and watched their backs as her own. She could have teleported anywhere in the battle, but would not leave while she felt she was needed. Sometimes one of her people would fall despite everything she could do to protect them, and then her heart would fill with rage. They all fought so very bravely, but in the end
    they were no match for Hadenmen. One by one they fell, until Midnight was left alone again. She vanished then, reappearing somewhere else she was needed, to protect another group of lepers for as long as she could.
    Bonnie and Midnight came together in the middle of the fighting, and when they stood their ground, back to back, no one could move them. They blocked the way to the biggest hole in the Mission Wall, and the Hadenmen came at them in an endless tide, only to fall back dead or dying, like waves crashing against an immovable rock. The Hadenmen had energy weapons, but in the constant moving crush of bodies, even their augmented computer minds found it hard to hit any one target. And so the battle went, until the sheer press and numbers of Hadenmen gained enough momentum to drive Bonnie and Midnight back, step by step, until they were standing in the hole in the wall itself, and from there they would not be moved. Until the Hadenmen brought forward a large object, wrapped in layers of thick waterproofing.
    The augmented men fighting Bonnie and Midnight took one look, and fell back immediately, hurrying to get out of the way. Bonnie and Midnight lowered their weapons and looked at each other, and then at the object, as the Hadenmen pulled away the wrappings to reveal a portable disrupter cannon. Bonnie glared at Midnight.
    “Get out of here, teleporter. Vanish.”
    “I won’t leave you here to die.”
    “I regenerate, remember?”
    “Not from that, you won’t.”
    “Teleport, damn you! I’d run, if I thought I’d get anywhere.”
    “Bonnie…”
    “Go. I’ve always known I’ll die alone.”
    Midnight cried out once, in rage and anguish, and vanished. Air rushed in to fill the space she’d left. She reappeared behind the crew of the disrupter cannon, hewing about her with her ax. But even as the Hadenmen fell away, dead or dying, one of them had already aimed and fired. The energy beam surged forth, an unstoppable storm of raging power. Energies that could vaporize steel or punch through force shields crossed the space between the cannon and Bonnie in under a second, and when the beam finally shut down, there was a hole in the wall big enough to lead an army through, and no sign anywhere of Bonnie Bedlam. Midnight Blue howled with loss, at the death of someone she might have been, at the death of a good comrade in arms. And perhaps just a little at the knowledge that no matter how fast