Astro Phil & Stella

Excerpt from a draft of a piece I wrote called “Astro Phil & Stella.”

 

She was tall and slender. The curves of her body were highlighted by the leather she wore. Her hair was long and raven black. The thin sunglasses she wore were dark enough to protect the world from her eyes. On her back, she bore a blade of steel. On each of her hips rested a deadly trigger.

She was the most lethal individual agent The Corporation had in their employ. In fact, she was one of the most notorious AstroCaedo. And she was here on a mission.

Her spaceship sat on an open-air dock outside the stronghold where her target was supposedly located. Three guard droids moved towards her, blast arms raised.

“You do not have authorization to be here. You will be dispatched. Leave now,” one robot said in a dull voice.

In one fluid motion, she pulled the blaster off her left hip and the sword from her back. Continuing the single motion, she shot the droid on the left, sliced the head off the droid on the right and ducked, spinning. The droid on the right was shooting wildly. As she ducked, the middle droid managed to begin shooting blasts at her. She stood up, and injected the sword into the metal hull of the droid, then shot it. She then turned her attention back towards the droid on the right, She placed the tip of her gun gently against the machine and shot. The heat from the blast was painfully pleasant. As the final droid toppled to the ground, she turned towards the building.

An alarm began to blaze.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

The woman walked up to the double sliding doors and jammed her sword in. Blaster at the crack of the door, she wedged it open. As her strength forced the doors, she leaned slightly to the side and shot several bolts in, before hundreds more pelted out.

Pushing her foot in the door, she mumbled something about not getting paid enough. She managed to roll into the room, sweep her sword across a broad area, and shoot two attackers in one fell motion. The weapons fire stopped, and the sound of bodies splattering to the floor echoed. She tapped the temple of her forehead, and saw a blueprint of the stronghold in her minds eye. She dodged off to the right as she heard armored troops coming down the hall.

As she ran, she came up on the corner she needed to turn. She slowed to round the corner and as she turned it, she found a gun pointed at her head. She recognized the male that glared back at her. This was the target. “Come on now, Stella,” the calm and even voice said, “just because you’re the star of The Corporation, you didn’t think you’d get away with this.”

She stared at him, wordless for a moment.

“Your droids couldn’t dispatch me. Your guards couldn’t touch me. Your armored troops haven’t caught up with me. What makes you think you can kill me?” she asked.

“The fact that I have a gun to your head. An advantage that none of those groups has yet had.”

Out of nowhere, her hand came up and knocked his blaster to the wall, where it ricocheted to the ground, and pulled him around. Keeping her left hand on his wrist, which was now turned and his back faced her, she jammed her knee in his back and pushed him to the ground. As he hit the ground she pulled her sword out with her right hand, and shoved it into the back of his neck. Blood spilled all over.

“The gun didn’t help you much, did it?” she asked, her voice clear as crystal, and calm as the ocean on a summer day.

She pulled up the blueprints again and found a way to double around the troops who were chasing her.

When she got to her spaceship, she sped off the planet.