Tamar heard the snap of metal on metal as each leash was opened, then the heavy thudding of clawed feet on asphalt. Seconds later, the first of the mutts poked its enormous snout over the rim of the hole and stopped to take a cautious sniff. The next behind it wasn't so wary and plowed into the first at full speed, sending the first over the rim and into the blackness below. With a loud huff followed by an expression that looked a lot like a shrug, the other two dogs leaped one after the other into the void.
Their snarls of eagerness morphed into howls of panic the instant they hit the bottom three stories down. Tamar had found and piled dozens of rotten human corpse at the very place she knew they were going to land upon entering her kill zone.
When the first canine hit the top of the pile, it sank deep, its entire body disappearing into the morass of decay and purification. A split second later, the second and third landed at almost the exact spot the first had. Almost half a ton of canine flesh drove the first hound back beneath the foul smelling mass, just as it had gotten its nose above it. Wiggling, writhing, the mass disgorged three four-legged piles of entrails, limbs and pale, shredded flesh.
While they struggled, trying to get free from her trap, Tamar had not been idle. Working her way around the huge cavern, she positioned herself behind the first of the dogs to get free. She was hanging from the side of the wall, from the protruding concrete pieces and jagged ends of broken re-bar. As soon as the dog was clear of the mess she'd made for it, she sprang.
Powerful legs propelled her like a bullet, so fast she became nothing but a black shadow, almost indistinguishable in the near blackness of the hole that surrounded her. When that shadow met flesh, there was a deep slashing sound, like that of a knife cleaving through steak. The dog died in a welter of blood, its throat ripped to shreds. A gurgle came from the mangled remains in place of a howl and it toppled onto its side, twitched once, and laid still.
Twin roars filled the cavern as the other dogs burst from the pile, snarling at the death of their companion. By the time they shook the gore from their eyes, Tamar was back in the shadows, where her fur color blended her with her surroundings to the point where she could not be seen.
Each dog lifted their noses high, trying to catch her scent. Gore clung to every inch of their bodies making smelling anything nearly impossible. That was what Tamar's trap had been for.
"You're going to have to come up with some other way to find me." Tamar snarled under her breath as she made her way into position for another attack.
The next dog died in a single snap. Tamar landed on the massive back, reached down to its chin, and heaved upwards. Its neck popped with the sound as loud as a shot guns roar within the near noiseless chamber, and the canine hit the ground with a solid thud.
Whirling to find the last of the three dogs, Tamar found she had used too much time on her latest victim when the muzzle of the last dog was within three feet of her as she turned.
She would have died then and there, and she knew it. Teeth the size of kitchen knives slammed shut a hair's breath from where her head had been a split second before as her muscle memory kicked in. Before she was even aware she was in motion, her body had moved her head away from the danger. Dropping to her knees, she lashed out, her razor-sharp claws leaving five deep slashes in its chest. The cuts didn't even slow it down. It carried its momentum forward, bowling her over and slamming her to the floor.
But the dog hadn't counted on the opponent it was up against. Dogs love to torment cats when they have the advantage. Most of the times the dog is many times the cats size. But what happens when the cat is large enough to fight back? Even though Tamar was not anywhere near, the dogs equal in size. She was more than its equal when it came to sheer strength, though. They had grown her for it.
Clamping both her hands around the dog's throat, she began to squeeze. The hand hold kept her from being dashed against the ground while her feet were used to do the real damage. Bracing herself with her arms, Tamar began to rank the dog's stomach and sides with claws that stuck an inch from the end of her toes. The beast reared up and pulled its legs out to the side. Coming down, nothing was there to catch it except Tamar. All four hundred pounds came down on her, pounding her back into the busted concrete and debris. Her grip slacked from its throat and it managed to get one of her arms in its massive jaws. Thinking as if her life depended on it, she did the only thing she could. Before the massive jaws snapped shut, she drove her arm to the shoulder down the creature's throat.
Teeth that could bite through her skull sank deep into her humerus and lodged there, prying a deafening scream from Tamar's lips. With her arm in its mouth, the mutt began to slam her into everything it could find. She felt a rib crack. Her collar bone was powdered, and the elbow in her free arm dislocated. But she hadn't been idle while being used for a ping-pong ball. The dog, trailing blood from multiple wounds, came to a stop as if someone hit the off switch. Without a sound it slumped to the ground, its momentum skidded it a few feet before it came to a complete stop. It didn't even twitch when it thudded down and lay still.
"Yeah, that's what you get." Tamar wheezed, laying on her back, her hand still wrapped around the spine she had just tore in two.
Trying to rise, it became apparent to her at a glance that she was still attached to the dog, or it was still attached to her. Rolling onto her side, she looked the dead mutt straight in the face. The only problem was, her arm was still in its mouth. Every time she moved, she could feel its long teeth grind in the bone of her arm, sending shock waves of pain coursing through her entire body. So with her free arm she reach and grabbed the dead dog's snout. Pulling upward, she felt its upper teeth dislodge from her arm. Then, gritting her teeth, she forced her arm up and off the teeth along the bottom jaw.
With as much care as she could manage, she pulled her mangled arm out and flopped onto her side. Tamar was spent, and she knew it. That was what the dogs were for, to weaken her enough for the men to take down. They were expendable, mere animals, but she was so close to an animal herself she could feel true pity for them. They only did what they were taught and commanded. She wasn't so unlike them, only she was too human to obey orders without question. That was what the General had wanted, wasn't it? Something that would kill on command. Without question or hesitation, well, she should have just grown one of her dogs and been done with it. Why had she created six near human felines and then tried to find ways to control them? Shouldn't you come up with a way to control something before you create it?
Laying on her back with the dog's blood pooling on the ground beside her, she closed her eyes and concentrated. A part of her training had been meditation, the whole control of the body by concentration of the mind. With the way her body worked, she found she could heal any part of her body to at least functionality by concentrating on the area to the exclusion of everything else. So she focused on her mangled arm and shoulder. If she would have been given even a few minutes, she could have repaired the major damage and had it at least functionality. The problem was, the men who had been sent to recapture her had been given a detailed briefing concerning her training and abilities, and they weren't stupid.
Tamar heard it before she saw it. A faint metallic clinking noise from almost straight above her head. With difficulty, she forced her eyes open. Once focused, she watched a small metal sphere bounce its way down the rubble strew wall. Her heartbeat went through the roof and the adrenaline boast her panic gave her made her forget about her wounds.
She threw herself up and away from the grenade a split second before it detonated. It had no shrapnel like a typical grenade. They wanted to capture and detain, not kill. So all that hit her was a pressure wave and a flash of intense light. By the time her vision recovered and she could feel her left side again, she heard at least five more plunking their way down towards her.
Heaving herself back to the feet, she gave a resigned shrug. They had plenty of ordnance, so she needed to move now. If she stayed where she was, it was only a matter of time before they landed one of those things close enough to incapacitate her.
Rolling her right shoulder, she winced. It had stopped bleeding, and some of the tissue had begun to knit back together. Tamar gave her arm an experimental turn and hissed as pain shot like daggers all the way to the tips of her fingers. The arm moved, but she could tell she wasn't going to be able to use it very well. Walking in quick halting steps until she was right beneath the hole in the road way, Tamar waited until another grenade tumbled down the hole, then leapt.
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"She sure took care of those dogs well enough."
"Yes, but they also did a number on her, sir. She's lost a lot of blood, and her right arm is close to useless. There is no way she'll make it through those men."
"Not unless I help." He'd seen enough to know an unpleasant situation. Why were eight men, armed to the teeth, chasing a lone girl, even one who looked like this one?
"WHAT? You know the Captain's orders. We are to not interfere while on the planet. We are here for recon, nothing more."
"You've been worming your way inside my head for how long? You've got to know my track record for obeying stupid orders has never been that stellar, has it?" Malachi leaned over the edge of the roof, watching as the men continued to lob grenades towards the hole.
Then, as if she had materialized on the asphalt, the girl stood at the rim of the hole. A powerful gust of wind swept the street and her hair fanned out behind her, reminding Malachi of the clouds of a fierce thunderstorm from his childhood. Only for an instant did she stand there, not giving the men a chance to draw a bead on her. She moved so fast her body faded into a black blur.
The first man she reached died before he could even ready his weapon. Rearing her arm back, the tiny girl rammed her fist down his throat, then kicked off the dying man as the grenade she'd ripped off his vest then placed in his stomach detonated. It wasn't explosive, but the concussion wave it sent out ripped him into two pieces, spreading blood and entrails over the remaining stunned men.
"The gas, get the gas!" Malachi heard one man scream, panic edging into his voice.
The entire area erupted into a sea of pinkish green mist. This gas was different. It hung in the air, the breeze having a harder time dissipating it.
The girl must have realized what the gas was, because the instant she saw it blossom she went from being on the offense, to trying to escape. Her strides eat up the ground but whenever she tried to turn up wind, they met her with a fusillade of none lethal crowd control rounds. The rounds didn't penetrate her skin, but wherever they struck, they raised angry welts so high he could see them even above her fur.
"She's trying to hold her breath. There must be something in that gas she's afraid of." Malachi said to himself. He watched as her motioned slowed, and on trembling legs she pitched forward while diving at the man who seemed in charge.
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NO, no, no,no no! She screamed inside her head. This couldn't be happening, she been so close to freedom.
Falling to the gravel covered asphalt Tamar could feel her limbs go numb. The tips of her fingers were first, the paralysis working its way towards her torso, until no part of her body would move. A single tear, running down her cheek was the only outward manifestation of her absolute terror. She was on her way back to the General, and she knew it.
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"Yep, I've seen enough." Malachi stood, making ready to jump from the roof.
"Sir, the only way you stop this is to kill them. You know that, right?" The voice in his ear reminded him.
"I do not have to kill these men to stop them. We are not at war, to kill someone outside of war for any reason other than self defense is murder, and it is written, thou shall not murder."
"You're right. I've been bonded to you for over one hundred and fifty years, and I still don't know how you think. You are now the most powerful weapon on this planet, yet you don't think it's right to kill seven men."
"No. I don't think it's wrong, I know it's wrong. These men have done me no wrong, and if you haven't noticed, there aren't many people around here at the moment. We need information and this girl should be able to provide all we need. She might be thankful enough for us saving her to share some with us." Malachi had not spoken to anyone or anything for this long in many years, and the computer intelligence that maintained his prisons systems was astounded.
"Wow, did you hurt yourself?"
"Hilarious. Now let's get to it."
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Whatever it was landed so lightly, the only reason she noticed it was because she was face down, drooling in the gravel. The men that stood over her didn't seem to, their attentions were where they were supposed to be, on her.
If she could have moved, she would have killed them all, but at the moment, the only things that worked on her were those systems that operated independently from conscious thought. Systems like breathing, heartbeat, even blinking, but everything else was shutdown, Tamar couldn't even wiggle her nose at that moment. She'd felt something hit the ground, so why couldn't she see it?
"Gentlemen, I believe the lady doesn't want to go with you." The voice drifted out of the dissipating mist like something on the wind.
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