by Aer-ki Jyr
When they got within 400 meters they had enough power to assert remote control over one of the crew, with Jenna instructing him to lower the boarding ramp. She managed to do it with a suggestive impulse rather than having to play puppet with him, which was fortuntate, for at this range that would have been difficult with them both being on the run. Had the individual been more mentally resistant it could have caused them problems given the unfamiliarity of his mental structure.
A lachar blast streaked across in front of them, but the infantry weapon had been fired at considerable range from the east with little chance of hitting. There were more soldiers over there, now running towards the Archons who were nearly at the walker’s feet. With the boarding ramp lowering and no return fire coming from the Type-5, the rest of the Varshoo knew something was wrong, but they weren’t going to have the chance to do anything about it, even if they managed to get a few lucky shots in.
A bit of plasma spit burnt through the grass ahead of them as one of the tanks made a long range shot, but the air had dissipated it so much that it was no threat to a fully armored soldier. Jenna and Levi ran through the low flames and jumped up onto the boarding ramp before it was completely lowered and climbed up the ladder-like contraption, disappearing inside the walker.
Jenna had the crew raise it immediately, with the two Archons crawling up inside the contraption the Varshoo had created to allow their pilots to operate the device. In sync, the two Archons pulled out their stun weapons and shot all four of the crew, relieving them of the need to keep their minds suppressed or frozen.
“Woo…that worked,” Levi commented as he released the battlemeld link to his master and started pulling bodies out of the chairs and dumping them on the floor. “Can I drive?”
“Help yourself,” Jenna said, sitting down and accessing her battlemap. “Holler if you need help.”
Levi grabbed a seat and went meditative, crossing his arms and legs and doing his best impression of Yoda, knowing that the way to drive one of these was telekinetically in order to compensate for the physical differences between Human and Skarron. This wasn’t the first time he’d driven one, for he’d trained on a mockup simulator along with a lot of other Skarron and lizard craft, as all the veteran Archons had.
Outside one of the giant legs pushed off and tilted the Type-5 ever so slightly to the side, then it stumbled forward taking a short step and establishing the robotic gait that they were known for. Watching the display screens so he didn’t step on anyone, he began walking the giant machine forward and beginning a turn towards the west.
Jenna waited a heartbeat, then telekinetically reached out and flipped on the shields.
“Duh, thanks,” Levi said as the tanks approached. They didn’t fire on the walker, not sure what was going on, and the Archon didn’t fire back. They were just going to deny the Varshoo the war machine that they didn’t deserve, leaving the primitives to fight this messy war using their own tech.
Whether out of confusion or prudence, the tanks never fired on the walker, but they did run alongside it as Levi drove it to the west towards the approaching Marauders. Jenna got a commlink to Brayden and confirmed their rendezvous point, which the walker would reach in two hours. The Marauders beat them to it and secured the area, fighting off the Varshoo tanks and forcing the survivors to abandon their charge and retreat back towards the city.
Once they were gone Jenna lowered the boarding ramp and helped drag the crew out one at a time down to the surface where Brayden and several other mercs waited. A Star Force dropship had already arrived, escorted in by the merc Valeries, and a group of commandos came out to Jenna, taking the prisoners off their hands and carrying them back to the dropship. She let Levi handle the others while she stepped off to the side to talk with Brayden.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she warned.
“You made that look easy,” the merc commented, pulling his helmet off.
Jenna left hers on, and he should have too. One rogue sniper shot would be all it would take to end his day in a very bad way. Yet another sign that these people were no longer Star Force, and starting to pick up some bad habits.
“I ought to blow it up.”
Brayden shook his head. “No, we’ll put it to good use. I promise.”
“I’m taking a chance on you, and the sad this is I won’t be around to find out if I’m right or not.”
“Any chance of getting some naval assistance on your way out?”
“No.”
Brayden sighed. “Very well. You’ve aided us quite a bit already. The new toy aside, it would have taken everything we had left to take it down, and that was after weeks of refit to our surviving tanks, so you have our thanks.”
“We came here for the intel, not the war, but you’re welcome. Just don’t try to use that thing without some practice. It’d be a shame if you broke it the first mission out.”
“We’ll take real good care of it, you can count on that. Do you want us to take the crew?”
“No, we’ll be dropping them off on our way out.”
“Where?”
“Near one of their bases.”
“Why not a prison?”
“We stole their ride. We’re not taking sides. You get the walker because I trust you. I don’t have the same confidence with the local defense force.”
“You mean what’s left of them.”
“From here on out you’re on your own. If the Varshoo bring in any other toys, we’re not coming back to deal with them.”
“Fair enough,” he said as Levi came down with the last one and handed him off to the commandos, then walked up beside Jenna.
“Keys are in the ignition.”
“Control keys?” Brayden asked.
“Just an expression,” Jenna answered. “You can figure out the details on your own.”
Without another word the pair walked off towards their dropship, but Brayden wasn’t going to leave it at that.
“Not to sound like an ingrate,” he shouted after them, “but I get the feeling you don’t like us very much.”
Jenna turned around. “No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“You’re a quitter,” she said flatly.
“If we weren’t out here, the frontier would be a little more messier than it is now.”
“Not the point.”
“So you just don’t like the fact that we’re doing things on our own now?”
“If I didn’t think you were doing some good, I wouldn’t be giving you the walker.”
“So why the animosity?”
“You left the team, and now you want me to treat you like you’re still one of us. You can’t have it both ways. You wanted out, now you’re out.”
“So that’s the way it is?”
“That’s the way it is,” Jenna echoed.
“As you wish,” Brayden said, putting his helmet back on.
Jenna turned around and walked off towards the waiting dropship with Levi, leaving the mercs to do their thing and wanting to get away from the mess of a planet that was Tieor.
8
October 14, 2735
Ma’kri Jor-El
Mid Jump
Jenna twirled her stun sword around once, accelerating the top half of the loop and using the force to negate the sideways slash from Levi’s double-bladed weapon. The two tubular blades met with a slight ping as the energy matrixes met and canceled each other out, resulting in no flow of the energy with the physical contact. The sound was muted, for the swords were set to a very low setting, but still there was a bit of FX where every blade crossed, adding a bit of energy to the rather standard training drill.
Levi held the blades together for a moment, then reverse-slashed with the other half of his weapon, aiming for Jenna’s right shoulder as he tried to keep pressure on her blade to delay its movement. The mage wasn’t so easily suckered, and she took a half step back before she pushed off a few inches and snapped her blade across her body and blocked the se
cond hit from the double sword with another ping on contact.
Then it was Levi’s turn to backstep as he reset himself with a twirl of his twin blades around the safe central portion of the sword. He didn’t take long to lunge back in, blade pointed towards Jenna’s midsection in a jab attempt that he knew she would easily block. When she did, batting the blade aside and setting herself up for a possible slash of her own with a step to his left, the padawan dropped down onto his heels and spun, bringing the other side of his sword around behind him toward her legs.
Jenna hopped over it, but while she was in the air Levi had a movement advantage and used it to enhance his spin, so that when she did land the other side of his body had rotated around and brought the back half of the sword with it, headed towards the side of her leg as she landed. It didn’t hit, for Jenna had dropped her own sword alongside her leg to catch the blow, but Levi pushed hard and got his master’s own blade to move towards her leg and nip at her boot.
Jenna felt a tingle of numbness enter her foot, but it wasn’t enough to trip her up. She responded by yanking her foot back and planting the tip of her sword into the floor of the training room, using the solid rod to pivot on while Levi twirled back in reverse to stand himself up. With the elder Archon now leaning forward, she let go pressure on the sword and used her off balance stance to propel herself forward as she brought the sword across to her other side, tip pointed down to catch Levi’s blade whether he was intending to hit her or not.
A step later and she was inside his swinging arc, bringing her right knee up and nailing him in the gut. With a telekinetic tug she threw him off her knee and onto his butt, landing her sword in the crevice between his chin and chest, an inch and a half away from touching his throat. She pulled back immediately, having finished that maneuver on reflex more than intent, and stood a couple meters away while he stood up.
“Sorry,” she offered, for this training session wasn’t supposed to be a full blown sparring match.
“So much for defense only,” Levi commented. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a little twitchy.”
“Why?” he asked, bringing half of his sword up in front of him in a guard stance, with Jenna likewise resuming a defensive position.
I don’t know, she said telepathically as Levi came back at her, making two quick slashes with the same side of the sword before throwing in a reverse that forced Jenna to switch her sword from one side of her body to the other. But that was a good hit.
You had it blocked, he said, continuing to lightly spar with her, focusing on the transition between movements more than the force of the blows.
Not well enough.
That’s my point. What’s wrong?
Jenna focused a bit more and met the next three slashes with crisp returns, then added force to the fourth, nearly knocking the double blade out of Levi’s hands as she batted it away to her left.
“It’s not me, it’s you,” she said aloud. “It’s like you’re not trying very hard, so I ease off then you slip it back up. If you’re doing it on purpose I’ll beat the crap out of you, but I don’t think you are.”
Levi winced. “Actually, I was.”
Jenna glared at him. “That’s not the point of this drill.”
“No it’s not, but something isn’t right with you so I was probing. And when I made a hit you seemed to take it personally.”
Jenna swung her sword to the side, lowering it almost to where the point touched the floor, and raised her other hand in exasperation. “I guess I just don’t like walking away from a fight.”
“Who does? That shouldn’t throw you off your game. Your head’s not fully into the training, you’re just acting out of reflex…and not to brag too much, but I’m too strong and know your techniques too well for you to hold me off with even a slightly disfocused effort.”
Jenna shut the power off on her sword, then retracted it back down into the handle. “Part of my head is still back on Tieor. We had to walk away, but part of me still thinks we should be back there saving lives rather than here training.”
“So we go back then,” Levi said simply.
“And do what?”
“You tell me.”
“No, don’t give me that bullshit. If you have a suggestion just spit it out.”
“I don’t, actually. But if you feel like we need to be there, then why not go back and see what we can do to help out.”
“We’ve already taken out the walker. What more would you suggest?”
“I suggest you quit beating around the bush and tell me what’s really bothering you.”
Jenna put her hands on her hips, starting to get annoyed, but as she thought it through she realized Levi was right.
“I think I screwed up.”
Her apprentice frowned. “How?”
“By picking a side.”
“We didn’t kill anyone, and the Varshoo have no business invading planets and killing people, no matter what their situation is back home.”
“But that walker we gave the mercs will kill people, which means we did take a side and got involved in the fight…then didn’t fully commit.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of war to go around if you want to go back and pick up where we left off.”
Jenna shook her head. “We can’t, and you know it.”
“I do know it, but apparently part of your head doesn’t.”
“Then explain it for me.”
Levi deactivated and retracted his sword, then tossed the extra-long hilt aside onto the mat. He counted off points on his fingers.
“One, we’re not going to help the Varshoo take over the planet. If that was ever an objective we’d have to do it without killing anyone, and we don’t have the means to do that out here. We could help them take over and reduce the losses to the native population, but we’d still be assisting those in the bloodshed, which is unacceptable.”
“Two, we can’t defend the planet for the same reason. If this was a lizard invasion it would be different, because we kill those bastards on sight. Skarrons more or less the same thing. The Varshoo aren’t our enemy. Maybe they deserve to be, but they’re not right now, and we go through a series of procedures to deal with ‘not so friendlies,’ which we’re not in a position to do here.”
“Three, Tieor isn’t an ally. If it was, we’d fight whoever was attacking them. Are they on the defense, yes, and that makes me, at least, sympathetic to their plight and wanting to assist, but if we’re going to fight a war to save them it has to be our kind of war. We can’t do that here, other than in small respects, and those would be aiding a planet full of people that might very well go attack someone else later. Maybe this attack is a reprisal for one that Tieor made against the Varshoo. Until we can determine who is in the right, all we can do is block the fighting through nonlethal means. Can we do that for the entire planet?”
“No,” Jenna admitted.
“Four, we have the mercenaries. There are a lot involved in the fighting, but having one unit made up of our former brothers and sisters throws a wrinkle on the situation. I want to view them as allies, but they left and are not entirely trustworthy simply for that fact. I have to keep myself from making the mistake of treating them like other commandos. They may have been once, but they’re not now. My gut says to aid them in battle, and leaving definitely doesn’t feel right if you’re looking at it simply from that perspective.”
“Five, we came here to track down the Skarron link, and there is none. Our original mission is complete, but because we involved ourselves with the mercs we got entangled in a fight that we didn’t finish. I know that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but we did save them from having to take on the second walker by themselves. It probably would have trashed what was left of their unit if they tried, and they were definitely going to try after taking down the first one. We threw our former guys a bone, simple as that.”
“And what if they use that bone to hurt somebody they shouldn’t?”
“The same could be said of the Hycre when we gave them cleansing beams. We can’t monitor everything they do.”
“I wasn’t the one that made that call.”
“And I wasn’t the one that made the call on the walker,” Levi added. “But I agree with it. Those mercs are the only partially honorable part involved in that war. Better to leave it in their hands than the Varshoo.”
“When you put it that way it seems pretty simple.”
“It is simple, when you analyze it.”
“Thank you. I’m more of a counterpuncher than anything, so you made things a lot clearer by laying it out and letting me react to the logic rather than trying to produce it.”
“So you’re good now?”
“Yes,” she said, pushing the button on her stun sword and extending the blade, followed by a whisper of a ping when the energy activated. Levi telekinetically pulled his back into his hands and brandished both blades, then ran a step towards her and began a series of hits and counter hits, seeing in evidence her returned focus.
He amped up his intensity, applying more power to each hit, and she responded in kind for more than a minute, then she quickly shifted to offense and proved yet again why she was the master and he the apprentice, for she got inside his defenses within five moves, then shoved an open palm into his chest, knocking him backwards and adding to it with a telekinetic shove that took him further away from her, but Levi did manage to remain on his feet.
“We are so going back,” she said, standing her ground.
Levi looked at her for a moment with a blank expression, then a grin spread across his face. “You have a plan?”
“It’s amazing how clear your mind can become when you decide to say ‘fuck it all,’” she said, waving him forward with her free hand as she set herself into a guard pose with the blade level over her head.
“What am I missing?” he said, readying himself for another lunging attack.
“A bit of recklessness.”
Levi considered that for a moment, then his eyes went wide with understanding. “No way.”
