Beware the Viridian Panther

Thirty Days of Writing 15/30: beginning, accusation, restless, snowflake, haze, flame, formal, companion, move, silver, prepared, knowledge, denial, wind, ORDER. thanks. look. summer. transformation. tremble. sunset. mad. thousand. outside. winter. diamond. letters. promise. simple. future.

“I gave you an order, Deni’Hulah! Move!”

“Reegar—”

“Go, Hulah!”

“Reegar, we don’t have enough soldiers—”

“STAND DOWN!” he bellowed, grasping Deni’Hulah by the arm and glaring at him. “This EMP gets fired or it doesn’t—”

The ground shook. The Reaper hooted, downing a turian frigate with a flash of red in the distance.

“This pulse is going in five minutes, no matter what! Now get your ass out of here!”

Deni’Hulah loosened.

“Aye, aye.”

They took off in opposite directions, Kal’Reegar hooking his foot onto the ladder and clambering as fast as his limbs would allow him to. One. Two. Three. Nine. Twenty-seven.

The tower wobbled, and the terrible howl of the Reaper rattled Kal’Reegar’s head inside his suit.

“Dammit,” he whispered, his breath condensing against the glass of his visor as he hauled himself to the repair platform. The tower shuddered again, with two tremendous thuds, the Reaper turned: dammit, right into the firing line!

Reegar dashed for the console, his omni-tool spitting out commands and flaring yellow.

The Reaper howled, and its laser charged—

“No!”

The laser cut a clean path to the east, and—dammit right through the retreating figures of his comrades.

Not again.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you bosh’tet!” Reegar bellowed, tapping at the console as fast as he could. No point in delaying it now—they were all gone.

He wasn’t even sure if the transmitter would burn out or not. It was a comms tower, never designed to fire a high-energy EMP to stun a giant bio-mechanical alien. But Kal’Reegar was out of options.

Come on, you piece of crap! The caches cleared, the command entered the queue, and—

9. 8. 7.

It was always going to be like this. Death at the hands of the enemy, having never set foot on Rannoch. It would have been nice—he’d seen the vids that Tali’Zorah had sent across—keelah, he’d have given anything for that little house on a cliff-edge.

6. 5. 4.

At least he was going out on his terms. Never let the bastards fry you when you can do it yourself.

3. 2. 1.

With a final breath, and an exultant cry, Reegar ran, leapt from the platform, and fell—

“Keelah se’lai!”

FIRE.

His suit radio squealed with the sudden flood of electromagnetic energy, the Reaper howled and buckled as if in pain.

And, for one shining moment, Kal’Reegar learned what it was like to breathe un-purified air, and smell and taste wet dust.

It was beautiful.