One of Three

[Toaster]

Crimson drops splattered onto the snow as a coughing fit doubled Olivia over. Squinting, she glanced up from the bloodied ground. The world around her was spinning, the daylight reflected by the snow-covered mountainside blinding to her eyes. Her ears rang, yet she could make out the roaring of flames as the Sichel transformed into a blazing inferno behind her.

Kneeling down, the snow softly crunching beneath her, Olivia cautiously ran her hands over her body. There were aches in a dozen places and touching her chest shot a lance of pain through her torso. A fractured rib most likely. Patches of her jacket and flightsuit were burned or torn, but her hands came away clean, no bleeding wounds to be found. Lucky. She knew the crash could have easily killed her.

The mercenary sat there, taking deep breaths, letting the spinning scene around her come to a gradual halt, the ringing in her ears ebb off. Slowly, she turned her head, facing downhill to where a plume of smoke rose from the ground, marking the end of a long, black scar in the otherwise pristine, white landscape. Shakily, Olivia rose to her feet once more, fighting a sudden urge to throw up. A trickle of blood ran from her tightly pressed lips, dripping down her chin onto the tattered remains of her jacket. Another deep breath calmed her nausea, though the taste of iron on her tongue remained. A problem she would have to worry about later.

But there were other, more important matters to deal with first.

Reaching down along her left thigh, she felt the reassuring handle of her combat knife still clasped firmly in its sheath. A probe of the other leg revealed that her favored handgun, too, was still tucked tightly in its holster. A glance over her shoulder at the wreckage of her ship told Olivia that the remainder of her belongings - mostly weapons - were lost. She sighed and started the slow, pain-wracked trek down the mountainside towards the growing column of smoke. The meager armament she still had on her would have to suffice to deal with whomever she met at its source.



* * *


The freighter's frame was twisted and bent, its hull scorched and in places torn wide open by the violence of the crash. Soft snow had quickly given way to solid rock along the ship's half-mile skid down the side of the mountain. Debris littered the surrounding area, dotting the landscape like stray flecks of black paint on a white canvas. Smoke billowed from the vessel's remains, orange flames licking at what remained of the hull's paint.

A man crawled out from within the wreckage on hands and feet, coughing as he gulped in fresh, cold air. Dazed, a bloody gash running down the length of his face, he looked out at the scene around him. A smile cracked his lips and he let out a laugh, exulting at his survival. Then his head snapped back, a spray of blood and grey matter spattering the snow behind him. Lifeless, his body crumbled.

Olivia limped closer to the freighter, keeping her handgun raised in case any more survivors emerged from the wreck. Judging by the damage to the vessel, there could not be many, if any at all; yet she remained cautious. Cretans were, as she had come to learn only too well over the years, tough bastards. Slowly, sweeping her gun from side to side, she approached, stepping over her victim's corpse - no one she recognized-, jagged bits of metal torn from the ship, and puddles of molten snow. The crackling of flames grew louder, punctuated by the occasional pop of small detonations - fuel cells bursting, rivets coming apart. The smoke billowing from the wreck became a dense haze, and the mercenary was forced to cover her mouth and nose with one hand, gripping her sidearm in the other.

Circling around the ship, she discovered a gash in its hull large enough for her to step through and found herself on a through-deck between the freighter's bow and cargo space. Sparks cascaded from severed electrical wiring, illuminating what was otherwise a dark, lifeless interior. Olivia stepped towards what remained of the cockpit - the ship had plowed into the ground nose first, its ornamental horns and most of its prow having been shorn clean off. Sitting in the mangled remains of the pilot's seat, she found an equally mangled body, its face an unrecognizable bloody mess. Holstering her sidearm, Olivia reached around the body, found the release for its safety straps, and pulled. Freed, the limp corpse slid out of the chair, collapsing onto the deck below. Satisfied that the pilot was indeed dead, the mercenary once more drew her weapon and returned to the freighter's main hold.

If anything, it looked worse than the cockpit. Cargo crates had come loose from their magnetic pads and transport nets, many cracked open by the force of the ship's impact. Goods were spilled all over the deck - munitions, fuel canisters, food stuffs. Amongst the mess, in the dim, red light cast by a few still functioning emergency lights and the ever thickening smoke, Olivia could make out the twisted shapes of bodies.

Cautiously, the mercenary moved through the chaos from body to body, checking to see whether she recognized any faces. She didn't. Worry struck her as she realized that her target, Dareios, may not have been aboard the ship, that her contact's information had been wrong, that this hit and the loss of her ship had been a waste. Her hand clenched around her handgun's grip, knuckles white. She rose to her feet again from where she had crouched beside the last of the corpses and glanced around the devastated cargo hold. There was no movement, save for the billowing clouds of smoke and flames slowly advancing from the ship's aftward engine compartment.

"Damn it," the mercenary muttered under her breath.

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Olivia Sable