by Ryan Krauter
"Everyone have their body armor ready?" asked Cory. She reached to the ground and grabbed her one-piece shirt and shrugged into it. It was made of a heavyweight canvaslike material with an interesting physical property; while it was usually quite loose and pliant, it hardened exponentially in response to kinetic energy. Swinging your arms back and forth wouldn't stiffen the material, but the impact of a bullet or large force like a pipe or heavy blow would cause a local area to harden. Sheathed in a thin layer of the best energy-absorbent anti-energy plates Confed could buy, it was the current state of the art in personal armor; it was lightweight enough to wear daily and effective enough to stop most pistol ammunition. Assault rifles and repeated close hits with a blaster would still win in the end, but it was better than nothing. Cory pulled the long sleeves into place and then pulled on the snug-fitting pants to match.
"Safety first, I always say," she replied with a grin as she buckled her gun belt.
"Where's Web's?" asked Merritt.
"He's wearing his," Halley replied. Loren looked at her as if to ask if she really meant it. "He wears it everywhere," she said again.
"I wore it to your wedding," came Web's voice over their comms.
"Seriously?" asked Merritt. "What sort of party were you expecting there?"
"Hey," Halley interrupted, "something he even wants to wear it while we-"
"That's just wrong," Loren broke in. "We get the idea."
Tana Starr walked with new purpose down the second tier of the block. She'd return to ground level to arrive at the safehouse, but she still enjoyed the view from up here and would take it in as long as possible. After soul-searching the day away while thinking about her role in Velk's impending demise, she realized she'd gotten over it. It was part of the mission; no one person was more important than the destiny of her people, their purpose in once again taking up the mantle of leadership in this wayward galaxy. She wondered if the same fate would await her someday. Live by the sword, die by the sword, or so the humans said. It was fitting.
She arrived at the front door of the safehouse at close to twelve thirty in the morning. She didn't knock, since she knew somebody would be watching the approaches. She simply waited until she heard the door's locks disengage, letting the old fashioned wooden door swing inward. Salvor had come to meet her personally, and he held the door open for her, closing and locking it after she'd entered.
She took stock of the first floor and saw that Salvor's men hadn't changed the layout at all. There was a living space in front, with lots of comfortable seating. A large dining room that adjoined a well-appointed kitchen filled out the rear of the first floor along with a small bathroom. Salvor led her to the staircase in back and up to the second floor. There was a loft area at the top of the stairs, with three bedrooms and two full bathrooms taking up the rest of the space, a single hallway giving access to them.
Representative Velk was hunched over a table, reading an old paper book by the light of a floor lamp. He noticed Starr and Salvor arrive and stood to greet them, hand on his chest in the way of the Primans. They returned the gesture.
"Representative Velk," Starr said deferentially. Despite the plans she meant to carry out, she respected the man and his ways.
"Ms. Starr," Velk replied. "Thank you for bringing those supplies so quickly," he said, indicating the small shoulder bag she carried. "I was just reading some works of the philosophers that our children have produced," he said with some hint of pride, like a parent whose child has done especially well in their schooling. "They've come up with some marvelous ideas about everything from morality to personal enlightenment."
"What are you reading there?" she couldn't help but ask.
"The works of an ancient philosopher from a little-known backwater planet. Not a threat to us, but still our children. He posits the following question: if you had to live your life now, from beginning to end, over and over until time itself runs out, with every joy and every sorrow, would you view it as a curse or a divine gift? Have you lead your life in such a way that you'd be happy to experience it repeatedly without end? Or would it give you pause and make you reconsider what you've done and will do in the future?"
The woman pondered the question for a moment. "A worthy consideration," Starr allowed.
"I see it more as the ramblings of a person with too much time on their hands," Salvor grumbled.
"See it as you will," Velk allowed. "You don't have to agree with a philosopher; if their words cause you to examine your own life, they've served their purpose."
It was time. Halley's running clock told her she had about twenty seconds to the door. Everyone would breach on her action. She strolled along slightly wobbly, trying to look the part of someone who's had too much to drink. She kept her hands in her pockets against the faintest of chills in the night as a hazy ground-fog began developing. She made several false stops, like she was looking for a particular home. Her act wouldn't fool them once they realized she was coming through the door, but any tiny bit of indecision or hesitation on their part was worth it.
She'd used her contacts' zoom ability to watch the door as Starr entered. There were three hinges on the right and a reinforced bolt at the pressure plate on the outside where it was meant to be pushed on. She'd thumbed her SSK to solid armor-piercing ammo and would just shoot the hinges as she charged the stairs. No finesse tonight.
She stumbled along the walkway, then abruptly turned and headed unsteadily towards the short flight of steps to the front door of the Priman safehouse. By the time she got to the bottom step, her SSK was out. At the top step, she'd fired three rounds into the hinges on the right side of the doorjamb and two into the locking mechanism. When she got to the door, she had started a dash and was leading with her left shoulder.
Halley crashed through the door, sending the weakened barrier falling into the room with a practiced shoulder block. She wasn't big enough to do it with brute force alone, but having shot the door free of all support made it easier.
No sooner had she bounced back upright than she saw two Drisk, one in the living room, one in the dining room beyond, both holding nasty looking cut-down repeating blasters that they were in the process of training on her. She put one round in the chest of the closest one and he fell back onto a heavily stuffed couch, then quickly shifted and double-tapped the farther one where he stood in the dining room. Before his body hit the floor, she swung back and put one in the head of the first man she'd shot, just to be sure.
Loren and Web ran to the patio door and shot the glass out as they each jumped through one side of the double doors. Amid the crunch of glass as they turned, a Drisk man jumped off the bottom stair onto the first floor and fired a shot at Loren, who was forced to hit the floor, cutting his exposed hands on some of the broken glass. Web retaliated with a salvo of three rounds, all of which connected, sending the man crumpling to the floor.
Web reached down and helped Loren up, who grimaced at his wounds but said nothing more. They nodded at each other and quickly stormed the kitchen, securing the area.
"Clear," they heard Halley call from the front.
"Clear," Web replied.
The first floor was theirs.
Merritt jumped out of the hovercar and Cory was gone without even touching down. With any luck, they'd never even know she was there. He dashed past a parked hovercar, figuring it must be their getaway vehicle. He reached the door and steeply protruding stairwell that lead down onto the third floor and reached for the touchpad to open it.
Instead, the door flew out, swinging on its hinges as it was forcefully pushed open from inside. A Drisk man raced out of the opening within a handspan of Merritt, and he distractedly realized that he'd taken too long; they were already alerted downstairs and this guy was in charge of getting them out of there.
Merritt spun at the same time the Drisk man did, each raising their weapons in unison. The range was so close, though, that they both did the same thing; they jumped inside the reach of each other a
nd grabbed for the other's gun. Merritt thought quickly and just let the man have his gun; he balled up his fist, lead with his middle knuckles, and punched the man squarely in the throat. The Priman/Drisk had been expecting a fight for the gun and had left his upper body undefended. As he staggered back, hands clenched to his collapsed windpipe, Merritt stepped towards him.
The Priman swiped at Merritt with his right hand, which Merritt blocked and trapped with his forearms. He grabbed the man's wrist, then rotated and lifted it over his head as he spun one hundred eighty degrees, in the process lifting the man's outstretched forearm over his own rifght shoulder, palm up. Merritt savagely yanked down on the man's wrist, using his own shoulder as a pivot point for the man's elbow, which snapped out of its' joint with a sickening wet clunk sound. For good measure, Merritt jabbed backwards with his left elbow into the man's sternum, a move that disrupts the nerves and can temporarily make the muscles 'forget' how to breathe right.
Before the Priman hit the ground, shock had overtaken him and he was unconscious. Halley had been drilling them all on close-in fighting lately, and the first thing she'd made them accept was that fights don't usually last long, especially once hits start landing. The long, set-piece fights popular in the holomovies just don't happen in real life. People get wounded and tired too quickly. Merritt knew he was lucky to have gotten the first hit in and even with the short length of the fight, he was sucking air, trying to recover. He forced himself to shake it off, then grabbed his SSK from the ground, checked the charge, and ran to the stairs.
"One unconscious on the roof, Cory," he said breathlessly as he ran inside. "Keep an eye on him, ok?"
Salvor wasted no time in getting everyone barricaded upstairs. He left one man at the top of the stairs to pour fire down to the first floor and sent one up through the vacant third floor to the roof to get their hovercar ready. He kept Starr and Velk behind him in the hallway as he faced the loft area, ready to stand as a last line of defense should any of the unidentified attackers make it up to the second floor. He hadn't heard from the man he'd sent to the roof, and was already writing him off as well as the three others on the first floor that were obvously not stopping the attackers below. That left him with Starr, Representative Velk, himself, and one other.
Salvor turned to the steep staircase that led to the third floor and started firing rounds upwards as fast as he could. Starr could only stand there with Velk and try to formulate some sort of plan. Their only chance might be to attempt to exit from one of the bedrooms across the gap between homes and into the house next to them.
Halley was starting to worry; the assault was bogging down and the Primans were settling in. They held the high ground, and even though Merritt was blocking the way out through the roof, a stalemate was potentially as good as a loss. They might be under orders to kill Velk instead of letting him be recaptured, and she couldn't accept that. She switched to thermal vision and saw the red outline of the Priman at the top of the stairs as he held his repeater around the corner and sprayed energy blasts down the stairwell. She took a brief lull in the firing to lean out and fire a half dozen armor piercing rounds at the red blob where it was hiding behind a support column, and was rewarded with the sight of it falling to the floor in a heap and not moving.
She then charged the stairs, activating the aiming camera on the bottom of the SSK and having it send the image to her contacts. In her right eye, a semi-opaque video feed appeared, showing her what her gun saw and projecting a red dot on the impact point of any shots fired. She lay flat on the top of the stairs and held the gun around the corner to the left and saw the Priman standing resolutely in the hallway, his own gun pointed towards her. But not at her; above her head, where he expected some poor bastard to poke their head up and take a look. Instead, she fired a single shot, hitting him in the forehead and sending a spray of brain matter over Starr and Velk behind him.
She jumped up into the loft and charged at them again, adrenaline coursing through her veins even moreso than a normal person would feel thanks to the commands sent by her nanites.
She was on Starr before the Priman woman could spin around completely, for she'd been firing up the stairwell in response to Merritt's own fusillade of energy blasts. Starr leapt forward to meet the challenge, leaving Velk a few steps behind and forgotten for a brief instant.
Halley wanted to question Starr and bring her in, so she had no intention of going for a killing shot. A good blast to the leg, though, was perfectly acceptable. She lowered her SSK to take the shot but Starr dodged, closed, and kicked the gun from Halley's hand.
As it clattered off towards the stairs, the two women squared off. Halley was expertly trained and had some augmentation from her nanites, but Starr was slightly larger and seemed just as confident of her own abilities. Starr took quick shuffling steps forward so as not to over-reach, and launched a series of strikes at Halley. It was all jabs, feints, and quick shots, never extending too far and never staying still. Her strikes flowed from one into the other; she never waited to see if she'd struck a telling blow because she was already halfway into her next attack. Halley, in response, was on the defense against the relentless assault. She blocked with her forearms, slapped blows away with her palms, shifting to take a few blows on the shoulder or upper arm instead of a more critical area, circling out into the loft as she tried to create some separation to launch her own attack. The Priman was relentless.
Merritt had noticed the shots were no longer coming up from the hallway and jumped down the stairs in two leaps, ending up on his knees but otherwise in control. Loren and Web had raced up the stairs from the ground floor as well, and all three watched the duel helplessly along with Velk. None of the men dared move, because Halley and Tana were dancing all over the loft, launching strikes and throwing anything at each other that came to hand. Merritt did manage to get Velk's attention, however, and the Priman Representative realized he was not going to get past Merritt at the stairs.
Both women finally disengaged, sweating and taking in gulps of air.
"You primitive savage," Starr taunted Halley. "You fight for a misguided cause. Surrender now and you will be spared for the skilled fighter you are."
"We might be a tad primitive," Halley said cautiously, fully aware that Tana might get the urge to charge while she was talking, "but until you stop trying to kill us all, you don't get to call me a savage."
"Then we'll end this," said Tana, and she shufffled in again.
Again, Starr lead with open palm strikes and elbows, even throwing in an upper jab to the chest with her knee when she and Halley were tangled up. Halley realized in a split second between blocking a strike to her neck and making an elbow strike at Starr's face that the woman heavily favored close-in fighting techniques. She might not even know anything different. A detached part of her brain said it made sense- cooped up in those ships for all those generations, fighting styles would have trended to close quarters techniques instead of the open ranging kicking and acrobatic styles favored by some disciplines.
Another series of attacks. Both women were at the top of their game; neither could land any serious, game-changing blows. Halley briefly had Tana's hand in a submission hold, fingers hyperextending back towards her forearm. Tana used that momentum and leaned in, using her free hand to try a closed-fist hammer blow right to Halley's collarbone. Her taller height and momentum gave her a ton of kinetic energy; it was the sort of strike that would fracture or break the bone, and Halley had no choice but to duck down and spin away, taking a jab at Tana's kidneys on the way. Tana rolled with the blow, taking a lot of the energy out of it. Unexpectedly, Tana charged Halley and hit her with a flying tackle, spearing her and sending the both of them into the small table and chairs Velk had been reading at a few minutes earlier.
Table and chairs crunched, splintered and broke, old and brittle wood splitting and turning the former furniture into kindling. Tana was up first, leaving Halley with her back against the wall where she sat on the g
round. The Priman lashed out with a kick at Halley's head. Halley ducked away at the last second, then leaned back in with her fist and punched Tana in the inner thigh as hard as she could, sending the Priman woman buckling to the floor with her.
Halley rolled away as Tana hit the floor face down, but the Priman was rolling an instant later, a thin piece of splintered decorative chair spindle held in her hand like a dagger with the blade held downwards. Tana rolled blindly towards Halley, her arm extending and snapping towards the Confed officer, and managed to connect, stabbing Halley through her upper leg with the sharp piece of wood.
With both women on the floor but separated, Loren and Web raised their SSKs and pointed them towards Tana, something Velk saw and reacted to.
Velk assumed that if they'd gone to this much trouble to capture him, they weren't going to kill him unless there was no other choice, so he did the only thing that came to mind; he threw himself at the two Confed soldiers, sending all three to the floor in a heap but denying them the chance to shoot Tana Starr.
Halley and Tana both got up again, slowly, wearily. Tana quickly moved to put Halley between herself and Merritt, who was still stuck in the hallway. They ignored the scuffle between Loren, Web, and Velk in the background. It was just noise to them, it didn't matter; their whole world was a ten by ten foot space, just the two of them, and they both knew that they probably had one more good duel in them before one got too fatigued and messed up. That was the one that would die.
