by S M Briscoe
The homing missile that was baring down on him rocketed past, by what seemed like only inches, immediately beginning to arc back around. That last patrol craft must have gotten off a shot before detonating. The hover bike had no weapons or enemy detection systems, so he never would have known if they’d had a lock on him.
Jarred reengaged the repulsers and pushed the throttle up as far as it would go, following the missile as it continued to wind back toward him. The Stinger was fast, but not fast enough to keep the speeding projectile in front of him. He wouldn’t be able to evade it for very long. Considering his few options, he pointed himself back towards the tram, angling himself to come in at a safe distance above and ahead of it, and bore down for a straight run. Any maneuvering would only take away from his speed.
He watched in his rear display as the missile finally came in behind him, closing rapidly. He had run out of time. Locking the controls and throttle on, Jarred lifted one leg over his seat and rolled off the hover bike, falling down and away from it. A moment later, the Stinger exploded in a spectacular display, one Jarred hardly noticed as he landed hard atop the speeding hover tram, bouncing and rolling along its surface as chunks of burning debris fell all around him.
Fighting to get a grip on anything that might stop or slow his own momentum, he managed to latch on to a small bulkhead, wasted shards of hover bike flying past him. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he realized the bulkhead he was holding on to was actually an access hatch. Coming to a crouched position next to the hatch, he triggered its locking mechanism and pulled it open, slipping down through the portal.
Inside, a number of passengers moved out of the way as Jarred dropped to the floor. Looking around, he found himself immediately confronted by hoards of nervous looking refugees, packed so tightly into the car he could barely see the hull on either side. Murmurs of curiosity went through the passengers as he pushed his way through them, slowly making his way to the front of the car. Scanning the mixed faces for Elora and Ethan, he called out to them as he went. Finally making it to the front portal of the car, and having received no reply, he opened it and stepped outside, crossing into the next car.
This one was just as packed as the other, if not more so, and Jarred found himself almost unable to move, straining to see up over the heads of all the refugees.
“Elora!” he called out into the crowd. “Ethan!”
As he began to push his way through the passengers, he heard a familiar voice cry out from the opposite end of the car.
“Jarred?”
He stopped and strained to see where the voice had come from. “Elora?”
“Jarred!” he heard Elora shout again.
“Jarred!” a new voice called out excitedly, and he knew it was Ethan’s.
“Ethan!” he called back, finally able to see the two through the small gaps in the crowd. “Stay there. I’m coming to you.” He worked his way through the passengers until he finally reached them, Elora throwing her arms around him in an embrace that took him by surprise.
“I thought you were dead,” she proclaimed, stepping back to look at him.
“Yeah, I heard the same rumor,” he replied, reaching a hand out to muss Ethan’s hair.
Elora’s eyes drifted to the scorched hole in Jarred’s vest and she reached out to touch the burned material, looking concerned and a bit mystified. “I saw them shoot you. You were . . . burnt.”
Jarred took hold of her hand. “I’m fine,” he said, reassuringly. “I need to get you out of here.”
“Okay,” she replied, snapping out of her daze. “How do we do that?”
Jarred stopped to think about his answer for a moment. He hadn’t planned on losing the hover bike like he had, and now he wasn’t entirely sure as to how they would make their escape. “I don’t know.”
Elora seemed genuinely surprised by his statement. “You don’t know? How did you get here?”
“Well, I had this really nice bike,” he began. “But, it kind of got destroyed.”
“Oh,” she granted, knowingly. “So, that’s what that was. Well, what about the tram? Can’t you take it over or something?”
“No,” he answered her, shaking his head. “The trams run on autopilot, and even if I could override it, it can’t run off of the skyrail.”
Elora looked suddenly disappointed. “Then we’re trapped.”
He hated to admit it, but it was starting to look that way. He may have done all of this for nothing.
Jarred looked up suddenly, along with everyone else in the car, at hearing a number of light impacts from the upper hull. Impacts that continued to move across the car.
Footsteps.
Jarred turned towards the portal he had entered the car through and saw a figure drop down in front of it. He recognized immediately that it wasn’t a Sect soldier as it moved through the small doorway, the surrounding passengers backing away in fear. The being was clad very simply, wearing only a dark, armored vest and pants made of a brown leather of some sort. His arms were bare and muscular and in his hand he carried what looked like a short and elaborately designed spear. His head was shaved bald but for a tail of black hair blowing in the wind behind him.
Jarred recognized the being’s race, but could hardly believe what his eyes were showing him. The warrior’s fierce looking eyes quickly came to rest on him and his mouth contorted into a sadistic grin.
“What is that?” Elora asked from over Jarred’s shoulder.
“Rai Chi,” Jarred answered, coldly.
The Rai Chi were a warrior race, more fabled about than actually known. People didn’t speak about them from first hand knowledge because people didn’t usually survive first hand contact with them. Though not a part of the Dominion, the Rai Chi were considered to be at the highest point of power in the ruling body which the Sect represented. Their warrior skill was spoken of as if from legend, and until this moment, Jarred had believed that they too may have been just that.
Unfortunately, he was wrong.
The Rai Chi warrior began to stalk forward towards them and Jarred backed away, pushing Elora and Ethan behind him. He turned around to see another figure drop down outside the small window in the car’s front entry hatch. The door opened and another warrior stepped through, blocking the way.
Thinking quickly, Jarred looked up to the ceiling and saw another of the upper hatches he had come through in the other car. Moving under it, he jumped up and released it.
Both warriors noticed what he was doing and started to move in on them, but the masses of refugees restricted any fast progress.
Jarred grabbed hold of Ethan and raised him up to the hatch. “Go, Ethan.”
As Ethan climbed through the opening, Jarred did the same with Elora, boosting her up to the hatch as well. The warriors were almost within striking distance, and as Elora cleared the opening, Jarred gathered his strength, crouching down before leaping straight up through the hatch. He landed with a foot on either side of the opening and closed the hatch shut, glancing down to see the matching, stunned looks on Elora and Ethan’s faces. His heart sank when he looked up to see the two Sect transports that were gliding along next to the tram, their cannons trained on him.
A voice shouted from behind him and Jarred turned to see four more Rai Chi stepping onto their car from the one behind it. The warrior he had first seen climbed back up from between the cars to join the group, and Jarred turned to see the second coming up at the opposite side, joined by a sixth who must have come up from the first car. To his surprise, the transports hadn’t fired yet and he looked to see that they were actually backing off a ways, coming to the conclusion that they had been ordered to do so by the warrior who had spoken before. He turned back to face the warrior leader.
He was similar in appearance to all the other warriors, his head completely bald. In addition to the body armor that had a more elaborate design, probably signifying his rank, he wore both shoulder and forearm guards, made from what looked like the same material
as the vest. He carried a similar sort of short spear as all the others, only more elaborate again. What distinguished him most was the jagged scar that ran vertically down his face, beginning at the forehead and running over his left eye to branch off across both mouth and cheek where it disappeared into his jaw line. Jarred’s focus though, was on the Rai Chi’s ice cold eyes, that were both controlled and fiercely intense, analyzing him. He had seen and faced enough opponents to know a dangerous one when he saw it, and knew in an instant that this warrior would prove to be just that.
The leader motioned towards the warrior to his right, who immediately stepped forward and withdrew a deadly looking, single edged dagger from behind his back. With a flick of his wrist, the dagger divided itself in two, the second half spinning down to lock in place in the reverse direction, turning the blade into a double ended weapon. He turned to one side, letting his armed hand fall behind him, and in a movement that looked almost elegant, he launched his arm around in a half circle, sending the deadly double blade spiraling in an arch towards Jarred.
Jarred reacted instinctively, dodging to one side and reaching out to snag the projectile from midair. Letting his body’s momentum carry him around in a circle, he sent the blade back at the warrior who had thrown it, impaling him through his apparently light chest armor and toppling him backwards to the ground. The look of frozen surprise on the dead warrior’s face was mirrored on those of his fierce comrades, excluding that of the leader, who’s expression remained unchanged. The scarred Rai Chi stepped over to the dead warrior’s body, kneeling and jerking the blade free of him. After a long moment he slowly stood back up with his back to Jarred, turning his head only slightly towards the other warriors before speaking. “Chu plah.”
Jarred didn’t have to know the Rai Chi language to understand what the leader had said, watching as the rest of the warriors began to fan out around him, the two from behind doing the same. He backed Elora and Ethan away with one arm and took a few steps forward to distance himself from them as he reached behind his head and slowly drew his sword from its sheath, pressing the actuator that caused it to shift into to it’s full length. It was five to one, excluding the leader. If they rushed him, he would have been finished. But then, he wasn’t expecting them to.
Confirming his theory, one of the warriors continued to close in as the others kept their current distance, spreading out over the perimeter of the tram. The approaching warrior spun his staff in a flashy display and it suddenly elongated, deeply serrated blades jutting out from each end. He took the weapon in one hand, resting half of it behind his back and stretched the other hand out towards Jarred, moving in on him with complete confidence.
Holding his sword with one hand at his side, Jarred assumed a non-defensive posture, hoping to goad his opponent into becoming overconfident. The warrior began to windmill his staff around again, spinning his body as he did so, and lunged forward, swinging the bladed edge of the weapon around in a reverse strike.
Jarred brought his sword up to parry the strike and immediately lifted his foot to step over the follow up sweep at his legs. Bringing his sword around in a quick circle, he batted a third attack aside, exaggerating the ease with which he did so, all the while never altering his position. As he had hoped, this only served to enrage his attacker, who growled in anger before lunging forward with renewed enthusiasm. Jarred sidestepped and parried the wild attack, pivoting away and slicing through warrior’s armor at the abdomen. He walked away without a backward glance as the warrior collapsed behind him, keeping his attention on the four remaining Rai Chi surrounding him.
The warriors gave each other quick, surprised glances, one letting out what Jarred took to be a stunned curse before stepping forward with his weapon at the ready, barking his own challenge. Jarred motioned him forward and the warrior lunged, feinting and striking in a whirlwind of movement so fast it was difficult to stay ahead while maintaining the illusion of defensive ease. He dodged most of the attacks, moving just out reach of each slash or strike, goading the warrior into an even more furious attack until he was pressed back to the very edge of the car.
The warrior swung his spear around in a vicious blow that would have knocked Jarred off the tram, had he still been there to receive it. He easily ducked under the strike and came up on the opposite side of the warrior, kicking backwards into his stomach as he came around, sending him tumbling off the tram.
The remaining warriors seemed even more surprised as Jarred came around to face them again. They glanced back at their leader, who was still watching closely with a neutral expression. Offering them no support, he simply looked off into the distance, Jarred assuming the gesture meant that they were on their own. The warriors quickly turned back to Jarred and, after a quick glance to one another, they began to slowly move in on him, this time as a group. So far, Jarred had proven himself to be the superior fighter, at least one on one, a conclusion that they had obviously come to themselves, as they now appeared finished with personal challenges.
Jarred twirled his sword around behind his back and held it there, offering no defense at all. The ploy had succeeded in distracting the warriors thus far, throwing off their attacks by angering or frustrating them, and if he was to survive any longer, he would need all the advantages he could get. He risked a quick glance back at Elora and Ethan, who were observing him with expressions that seemed a mixture of both awe and terror, then turned back to nod at the approaching warriors, inviting them to attack.
The warriors seemed to have learned their lessons, approaching him much more cautiously than the others had, triangulating themselves around him. Jarred stood still, facing only one of the warriors, but forming a mental picture of the other two with the rest of his heightened senses. He had learned to fight without the use of his eyes, relying instead on what he heard, what he felt, or even smelled. His training had taught him to do without all of his senses if need be, acting purely on instinct, anticipating attacks before they came.
The best way to do that was to make your enemy strike when and where you wanted them to, so when the warrior in front of him feinted an attack, Jarred was already blocking the real strike that he knew would be coming from behind, sidestepping and parrying the expected second attack by the other warrior behind him.
Jarred blocked attack after attack, avoiding contact with as many strikes as he could as he worked to stay a couple moves ahead of the warriors. He was succeeding so far, but his attackers were good and their assault was becoming more and more coordinated. It was only a matter of time before something got through. He would have to go on the offensive, and sooner rather than later.
He lunged forward, directly into the nearest opponent’s attack, blocking and countering it with an upward slash across his torso, receiving a more angry than painful scream in return from the warrior as he dropped to one knee. Amazingly, he let out a defiant growl and thrust his spear out at Jarred in a final attempt to impale him. Jarred didn’t stop the strike, but used his parry to guide the spear end past himself and into the stomach of the warrior coming up from behind, impaling him instead.
Sensing movement again behind him, Jarred immediately ducked under an incoming spear and spun in a full circle with the blade of his sword cutting through the air as he went, coming up to face the third, stunned faced warrior, his spear held high over his head. The warrior remained standing a moment, his face contorted in a look of pained confusion before he finally toppled over, and Jarred heard the other two behind him do the same, finished off by the same stroke of his blade.
As he stood, Jarred glanced towards the Sect carrier that was still hovering along next to the tram, contemplating the possibilities for how he might board and commandeer it. He pushed the problem to the back of his mind and turned his attention to the greatest obstacle still remaining between him and escape, standing on the other side of the tram car, glancing off towards the carrier as well.
Seeming to follow Jarred’s train of thought, the scarred Rai Chi elongat
ed the staff he held at his side, which appeared much more complex and elaborate than those the other warriors had carried, and in a gesture that appeared to be some kind of respectful challenge, he lightly pounded his chest with his free hand and held it out to the open space between them, bowing his head as he did so.
Jarred looked over his shoulder at Ethan and Elora, who had moved to a new position at the rear of the car. Seeing them again, their faces full of more emotions than he could recognize, he was instantly reminded of just how much was riding on him now. He was used to defending and risking his own life, but now he had taken responsibility for the lives of two others. His actions would determine not only his fate, but theirs as well, and at that moment he knew that he could only allow one outcome. Nodding to them both reassuringly, he turned back to the Rai Chi, clearing his mind of everything else as he did so.
Nodding his head in return to the warrior, he raised his sword in a quick salute.
Chapter 14
The Rai Chi warrior raised his head and with a single twirl of his staff, lunged forward into a sprint.
Jarred did likewise, letting his sword trail behind him as he charged, quickly closing the distance between them. Before coming within striking distance, Jarred leapt into the air and somersaulted over his opponent while slashing downwards with his sword, his blade being met by the warrior’s solid staff. The Rai Chi’s counterstrike came so quickly, Jarred barely managed to raise his sword in time to block, his feet just reaching the deck as he knocked the blow aside. Spinning away, he came up into a guard position as his opponent did the same and they began to slowly circle one another, both taking a moment to analyze their first exchange.
The pause was brief and they rushed in again, the warrior attacking first this time. Jarred parried and sidestepped the thrust at his stomach, back stepping as he picked off a blow to his head, followed quickly by another meant to sweep out his legs. As the warrior came around, he brought his staff around with him, swinging it down hard for the top of Jarred’s skull. Blocking high, Jarred shunted the attack aside, quickly lunging forward with his own assault, striking high and low, from side to side, trying to throw the warrior off balance.
