by Lowry, Chris
“But your vow-”
“They are promised to me. I give the order to kill,” said the Templar.
“Is this true?”
Pip and Robe nodded.
“He is our Commander now,” said Robe. “We do what he wishes.”
“Fact is,” said Pip. “We have to ask him not to kill. Troopers value life, Templar doesn’t. He would just as soon kill you and not have to worry about it.”
“So he has told me,” Banger appraised the strangers with new appreciation. “But why do you not kill us? We’re Corsairs.”
“We only kill pirates we catch in the act,” explained Robe. “This is only a village. We did not see you committing piracy.”
“They did shoot us down,” reminded Pip. “And sent men to capture our ship.”
Robe nodded.
“But the Templar told us he’d take care of it. We trust him.”
The Templar clapped a hand on Banger’s back.
“Then we will stay and rest.”
He marched to where Darwin checked on Bruce.
Banger raised his eyes to the two Troopers left flanking him.
“He said he will kill us all if we harm you while you sleep,” he said.
Pip nodded.
“He probably will.”
“We saw him fight the Mob and Troops. Twice. He is not a man to be defeated.”
“He fought the Mob?”
“No Suit. Two weapons, and his hands when we found him. He was ripping them in half, using a leg as a club.”
Banger’s eyes were wide on his dark face.
“Then he is a demon.”
“Maybe,” Robe agreed. “But he isn’t from our world. Our rules don’t apply to him. We agreed to follow him wherever.”
“Why?” asked Banger.
Robe thought for a moment.
“I will tell you, but we have to eat. All this hauling made me hungry.”
“Me too,” chimed in Pip. “Hey Doc! You want to eat?”
Darwin left the Templar with Bruce and jogged over to them.
“Thought you would never ask.”
“Templar!”
He motioned them to go without him and headed into the woods.
“What is he doing?” asked Banger.
“He said he would rest,” answered Darwin, shrugging his shoulders.
Banger led them back to his small hut.
He wandered down the well worn path, pushing past the lush vegetation that grew over the top. Here and there, his eyes could detect evidence of the path being made, branches hacked in half, flowers shoved back from the trail and now growing in some distorted unnatural pattern. But the jungle grew quickly, covering up and hiding until the path seemed a natural extension of nature.
He listened for sounds that were strange to him. He had been in the woods often, growing up and on many sojourns with is team, but none quite like this. Never before had he been on an island. Not even on the small mounds of tree covered dirt that dot the occasional riverscape. He could smell the salt tinged breeze rustling through the trees, and the half rotten fish stench that each ocean claimed as it’s own.
The path took him to the beach. He fought back an impulse to run across the sand and sink into the splashing surf. His eyes took in every detail, hovering on the horizon, searching for ships in air or on water. He looked first one way up the sandy stretch, then the other. He was alone.
“Here, I am safe,” he decided.
He walked through the sand until he reached the edge of the water. He leaned over, cupped a handful and took a deep swallow.
He spit it out, gagging. It was salty. He wiped his tongue with his hand, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. Sand grated on his teeth. He spit again.
The setting sun was warm on his back and shoulders. He unzipped the tattered bodysuit to the belt and tied the sleeves around his waist. Reaching his pistol was awkward with the bulky material blocking the way, so he shoved the barrel between his waistband.
He held out his arms, feeling the blood pump into his muscles as he stretched the soreness out of them.
Up the beach, an outcropping of rock bisected the sand, jutting from the water into the dark woods. He ran for it, barely breaking a sweat as he reached it and jumped on top.
From here the beach stretched into a gentle curve, hiding behind a sloping strand of trees as it rounded the island.
His eyelids drooped in weariness, the breeze washed over his sundrenched back, a delicious combination of warm and cool.. He longed to swim in the clear blue water, but his body reminded him of a promise. He searched for a suitable place.
Following the rock face into the woods, he found two giant trees growing side by side against the mound, forming a three sided barrier. He nested his body between them, laying his gun across his lap.
“This is a good place to sleep for a day,” he told himself and set his internal clock for tomorrow. The others would worry about him, but what did it matter. Banger and his village would not harm them for fear of reprisal. The stars winked on in the sky, filtering through the treetops, casting cold gray shadows across his chest. He fell asleep.
“When we were in HQ,” Robe spoke around the edge of his spoon, shoveling warm chowder-like substance into his mouth and talking over it. “Templar was a prisoner and we were assigned to guard him. He was magnificent in battle, I mean the best I’ve ever heard of.”
“And he was smart,” Pip talked over her bowl too. “At first, we thought he was a mindless creature bent on destruction, but we forgot to take into account that he was scared-”
“That man was scared?” Banger said.
“Sure, you would be too if you were dragged through time,” answered Pip.
“I don’t think this is appropriate,” Darwin set his bowl on the floor and wiped his mouth. “I feel this avenue of discussion creates more questions than it answers.”
“He was dragged through time?”
“He’s not from around here,” Pip amended. “And he was fighting the Mob as soon as he got here, then fighting us, then t Mob again. Everything he knew about us from the beginning was fight.”
“But that was what he was bred for, and he was good at it,” Bram picked up the story. “We finally captured him, but it was mostly luck on our part. Pip and I were guarding him in his cell, we had to keep our guns on him, the energy bonds don’t hold him. We finally got a chance to talk to him. He’s just like us, a soldier trained to do a job. He didn’t know what was going on around him, so he just followed instinct.”
“But why are you here?”
Darwin cleared his throat.
“I am here because he asked me,” he said. “I am responsible for introducing him to our society, I hold information about his past, and he came to me asking my help.”
He took a long swallow of water.
“The Templar has been trained as a Temple Warrior in the old fashion. Everything he knows about battle was lost of distilled somewhere in history. I came to study him and compare my knowledge of history with his.”
Robe refilled his bowl from the common kettle over the small fire.
“We came because he needs us. During our talk, he let us know him, let us know who he is and what he is about. He’s not a monster, he’s just a man, scared and alone. The Main Terminal ordered his death and Robe and I didn’t think it was fair or right,” her breath came soft and quick. “We knew it meant our expulsion and warrants for treason. But he was worth the risk.”
“It seems we have something in common with the Templar,” Banger said, standing up quickly. “But will you die for him?”
Relaxed by the warm stew and conversation, Robe let his rifle slip to the floor. He reached for it. A foot crunched his hand.
“You will,” a feminine voice whispered in his ear.
He tried to roll away, but a body check knocked him to the side of the hut. Sharp metal pressed into his neck.
“Wait!” Banger jumped
He stepped past the
trio to stand beside a tall, lithe young woman. She held a spear in her hands, and another across her back, the razor edges glinting in the firelight. She watched Robe with cold eyes, aware of Pip and Darwin.
“I was worried they had you,” Banger kissed her forehead, running his hands over her shoulders and arms, checking her for injury.
“These? I heard these coming and hid. The Suits are too noisy to be effective,” she laughed derisively. “Are there any dead?”
She tossed her mane of sun blond hair back toward the door, indicating the mass of prone forms spread below.
“Stunned all,” said Banger. “Which is why we do not kill these. They have a leader.”
“I gathered as much. I did not smell him as I came in, where has he gone?”
“Who are you?” Pip growled.
The tip of a spear moved from Robe’s neck to press into Pip’s jaw.
“You speak when spoken to, Suit.”
“This is my daughter,” Banger beamed with pride. “She is our greatest warrior. My greatest accomplishment.”
She shrugged off the compliment.
“I have trained, father,” she bowed her head. “Get their weapons and bind them. I will hunt for their leader.”
“No,” he argued. “ I was hoping to hear more of him before you arrived. He is too strong for you. He’s not one of them.”
She laughed, head thrown back, eyes shining.
“Too strong for me? No such thing. I will come upon him from the trees, like thunder from the sky. I will strike like a snake. He will not even know it was me that was his death.”
Robe snorted. The woman slammed the but of her spear across his face. He sprawled on the floor.
“Do not mock me,” she warned.
“Templar will hear your fall,” hissed Pip. “He will catch you in midair and break you before you land.”
“I think not,” she turned to the Trooper. “I am guerrilla trained, jungle hunter. Neither man nor beast can hide from me, nor stand before me.”
“You,” Banger nudged Darwin with his foot. “You know the history of this man. Does he have jungle training?”
Darwin took his glasses off and cleaned them with a corner of his shirt. He adjusted them on his nose, studying the tall Amazonian warrior in front of him.
“I don’t know his history specifically. I only know the history of his Order. He was a Knight Templar, a warrior priest dedicated to good and justice, fighting to right the wrong and protect the weak. At least, so as I know. But our Templar has been a bit of an enigma.”
Banger bound each of them with pieces of small rope. Robe and Pip tried to test the bonds, but the knots wouldn’t budge.
“A priest? He will be easy prey.”
“Patience,” Banger lay a hand on her arm. “I asked you a question,” he said to Darwin.
“I don’t know what training he has had. I have seen him fight, the Mob and Troops. I have seen him win both times, against superior odds and impossible chances. I have seen him shot. I don’t think a mere jungle guerrilla with spears will be able to defeat him.”
Banger turned to his daughter.
“Listen to him, Reanna. Set a trap for this man when he returns to the village. Do not go into the woods.”
She grabbed his upper arms in her hands and squeezed. Veins pooped out of her arms.
“Father, I am lord of this island. Every Corsair on this Coast knows that I say who comes and goes among our waters. How many forces have tried to take us, only to be turned away by my cunning and skill?”
She spoke with a confidence that was not arrogance, just truth. Robe thought she sounded a lot like the Templar.
“All,” Banger’s shoulders fell in defeat.
He knew his pride would disappear in the treetops, intent on her quarry. She would fight him for the challenge, fight him to prove her self master of this domain.
“Then have faith in me,” she double checked the bindings on the three prisoners. “Be glad he fed you first.”
She shoved them on their sides.
“This is twine, not an energy bond. Most people have a disrupter on them somewhere. On these, it will not work.”
She kissed her father on his cheek and jumped from the door to a low hanging branch. Her laughter receded as she left the clearing.
“She may not come back,” Darwin told Banger.
The thin man sat on the floor in front of the Doctor.
“I need to hear more of this man you call Templar.”
“I don’t know much more to tell,” answered Darwin.
Banger pulled a large knife from the folds of his clothes and ground the edge against a whetstone.
“You will tell me how he dies,” the rhythmic scrapes echoed through the camp. “If he harms my daughter, none of you will live.”
“We can kill him easy enough,” the scientist set down one of eight graphs and fiddled with the wire rim spectacles on his nose. “Our weaponry is sufficient. We just have to hit him with enough at one time.”
Nova hated the glasses that partially hid his eyes. In this day of laser precision surgery, spectacles were an affectation, a throwback to an era long gone. She despised affectations.
“Then why can’t we hit him?”
The scientist picked up another chart.
“Computer,” he held the plastic board up next to a hologram projection. Nova hated charts too, and wondered briefly if this man would be missed in R & D.
“The tracking study of his movements during his capture an stay have revealed an advanced neuromechanical system. It is quite unlike anything we have seen before. If you’ll turn to page one hundred forty five of the report I handed you, I can show the statistical evidence we have compiled regarding this,” he changed graphs. Nova didn’t bother to open the thick book in front of her.
“What does that mean?” she asked. “Is he human?”
“Quite human, as much a man as I am,” he puffed up his shoulders, shoving the glasses back on his nose. “He’s just different composition. His chemical make up is set apart from ours, due no doubt to evolutionary advancements since the First Computer War. Our advanced bodies have discarded the weak genes that make him invulnerable to our plasma bolts. He-”
Nova tuned him out. She could listen to no more. Obviously, the boys in Research had spent a great deal of time on the Templar, but she didn’t buy their theories. It stood to reason that he was better than any of them at battle and strength, and skill. She chalked it up to training, but it could be something more. All she wanted to know really, was how to stop him.
“How do we stop him?”
“Simple,” the scientist dropped all his graphs and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a small vial, no bigger than her pinkie.
“He’s impervious to our weaponry, so we found this.”
“What is it?”
“It should wipe him out, not as fast as a plasma bolt, but it shouldn’t take more than a week or so for him to die.”
“You mean we don’t have a gun that can kill him?”
“Oh, no. That’s what I told you. Even our Autohulk guns would just knock him out. We can’t burn him or anything. Weren’t you listening to me?”
Nova motioned to the vial.
“Then what is that?”
“It’s the flu.”
“The flu?”
“Yes. We’re immune to it, but he’s not. This is a strain we developed for him specifically. It’ll take about a week or so, but he’ll drown in his own fluid.”
“The flu?” she repeated.
The scientist nodded and placed the vial on her desk.
“Just break it open anywhere near him,” he gathered his charts and stood in front of her.
Nova stared at the tiny capsule on her desk. It looked empty but she knew better. The flu, a germ that had been eradicated after the Second Computer War. She looked at the scientist.
“Can I go?” he asked.
She nodded and turned to her terminal. He cl
osed the door behind him.
“Outcome,” she queried entering the germ into the equation.
“Termination,” it stated.
She leaned back in her chair and studied the vial.
She studied the beach from afar, crouched in the bough of a large tree overhanging a small inlet of water. It had been easy enough to follow his trail, although she still couldn’t catch his scent. Everyone on the island had a signature smell she could recognize, the heady sour aroma of sweat and food, differentiated between individuals by their households. But this man she followed, he left no scent, not the antiseptic scrubbed flavor of the Troops, or the dusty smell of the Doctor. Nothing.
His direction was clear enough. He followed the main path to the beach, and though she detected no visible signs of passing the leaves and branches, she saw where the dirt turned here and there. She liked him for trying not to leave sign of his passing, and wondered if he meant to do it that way.
Nothing on the beach. His footprints were in the sand, soft shoe she called it in her mind. He was being careful of where he stepped. But they stopped at the beachrock.
She guessed he climbed on it and searched the woods surrounding the end, and the sand on the other side, but again turned up nothing. Her quarry had vanished. She climbed a tall tree to mull it over, deduce where the man could have gone.
The woods were noisy with animal sounds and the hum of insects. She listened intently, the seed of an idea planted in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing and reached out with her sense of hearing. Behind her, muffled by her hair and the tree, the forest noise was whole, full of chirps, buzzes and flutters. To the left was another solid wall of noise, nothing there to disturb the natural order of things. But on her right, somewhere in front of her, not far from the beach, not too deep in the woods, was a break in the noise, a silent island where the insects and birds did not go.
She concentrated on that direction, trying to scent the wind, but nothing came to her. Only the glaring omission in noise, the silence growing louder in the din of nature.
She smiled and hefted her spear. She found him. Reanna adjusted her position in the tree, waiting for first light.
