by Justin Sloan
This wasn’t a dream, though, and the intent wasn’t to cause bodily harm here. They were training. Maybe it was to test each other, but it was definitely to help each of them improve.
Holding back in that regard wasn’t an option.
A shift in the air told Samantha Voira had moved in for the attack first, Agathe a split-second later. In response, Samantha did a quick feint to her left and then threw herself down to Voira’s legs. Voira tried and adjust for Samantha’s dodge, only to have her legs thrown out from under her as Samantha hooked an arm behind her knee and lifted up.
As Voira hit the ground, Samantha was already moving for Agathe, blocking the takedown attempt and then sidestepping to let her fall forward.
Only, Agathe was faster than Samantha had anticipated. She rolled with it, landing at Voira’s side as the latter recovered. This time Agathe was smiling confidently. The stones in her forehead were glowing, and the middle one pulsating.
“Is that… normal?” Samantha asked, pointing it out. “I mean, you’re head isn’t about to explode or anything like that, right?”
“I like to think it tells the future,” Agathe replied, working her way to her left. “When it glows like this, it means someone’s going to get taught a lesson.”
Samantha chuckled. “That’s cute. Here I was thinking it was more like a mood ring.”
Agathe lunged, and this time they actually did quite a good deal better. As Samantha moved to counter the attack, Voira came in, leaping on her back and wrapping a leg around hers, locking her at the knee and causing them both to fall. Agathe was on them a moment later, taking Samantha’s arm in an armbar while Carma laughed and cheered the two on.
“Since when are you on their side?” Samantha asked.
“Anyone who acts cocky enough to think they can take on two of their peers deserves to be cheered against,” Carma replied.
Samantha pulled against the armbar while working her legs to avoid another lock. “That doesn’t seem right. I’m the underdog here!”
“Now it looks like you are!”
Samantha didn’t think that was funny, and realized that her divided attention was causing her to do worse. Finally she managed to pull her weight away from Voira and roll into the armbar, breaking Agathe’s grasp and side-straddling her. She pressed one elbow against the woman’s head while tweaking the elbow of the far arm back and up.
“I give!” Agathe shouted, her other hand tapping the mat rapidly.
Samantha immediately let go and turned to see Voira growling as she grabbed Samantha by the waist. She had a leg between Samantha’s, and she maneuvered herself up and over the leg so that Samantha hit the floor with a thud.
“You abandoned me!” Voira protested, sparing a glance back at Agathe. “How could you?”
“I kind of want to have a working arm for our next fight, that’s how,” Agathe countered.
“Well,” Samantha interjected, “in theory Dex could have just healed it for you.”
No, Dex communicated. Anything breaks because of your lack of constraint, I’m not touching. That should give you more motivation to be fair.
“Oh, never mind.” Samantha lunged first this time, and the sight of her must’ve been frightening, because Voira backed away, hands up.
“I give, I give!” Voira shouted.
“Like that?” Samantha shook her head, still in an offensive stance. “Come on, that’s too easy.”
“Agreed,” Carma chimed in. “Come on, tag me in.”
“It’s not WWE,” Samantha replied with a chuckle. The two Acome stared at her, confusion plain in their expressions. “I mean, yeah, makes sense you wouldn’t know… but how do you know about the ‘tag me in’ concept?”
“Oh, we’ve been watching Earth for a while,” Carma replied. “At least, some of our governments have. WWE took off with my people long ago.”
Samantha had to laugh at that, but stopped when Voira slapped hands with Carma and the Arzanian fighter stepped in. It wasn’t a secret that Carma was excellent at close-quarters fighting, and had even been teaching Samantha a thing or two.
Now she was squaring up against Samantha, hands out, knees bent as she prepared to lunge.
“What’re the rules here?” Carma asked. “Just grappling? How about strikes?”
“You want to punch me in the nose or something?” Samantha asked.
“No, not at all. Just want to be sure I know the ROE here. Rules of Engagement.”
“Shoot to kill,” Voira said with a wink from the sidelines.
“I think we can both agree that’s not true,” Carma replied. “So, Sam?”
“Knowing how you can take a punch,” Samantha replied with worried excitement, “I’d like to see what you’re capable of.”
Carma bit her lip, but glanced at Samantha’s injured side. “How about light sparring, then? I’d hate to get on Dex’s bad side by being responsible for tearing open that wound.”
Agathe sighed. “She beat us with the injury. I completely blanked on that little piece of annoying knowledge.”
Voira just laughed and shrugged.
“Deal,” Samantha replied, and moved in for the attack.
Tear it open and you get to spar with me next, Dex communicated. Trust me, you don’t want that.
Relax, I’m just going to have a little fu—BAM! The thought was interrupted by a whack against her head from one of Carma’s bare feet.
Where the hell had that come from? Again Carma moved, but this time she did a stutter step, then a feint with a kick, only to pull it back and come in with a slap to Samantha’s cheek instead.
“Ow!” Samantha burst out, pissed. “How the hell did you get so fast?”
Carma smirked as she nodded to the training room doors. “Focusing more on speed now than special skills. Looks like it’s paying off.”
Speed only worked so far, Samantha thought, as she used the talking as a distraction and threw out a ducking jab that caught Carma in the gut. It wasn’t hard enough to send her backwards, but it was enough to cause her to take a quick breath and wince.
“How much have you upgraded your ability to trick your opponent?” Samantha said with a chuckle, moving to the balls of her feet and dancing around Carma. “Oh, wait, that’s not something you can upgrade.”
“I see how you want to play,” Carma replied, and this time she came in with a flurry of blows. But Samantha was ready, and surprised her opponent when she caught the first couple of strikes with forearm blocks. A kick came, and she checked it with her shin. Next a spinning backhand that caught Samantha in the shoulder, before Samantha ducked the next blow and came up with a kick to Carma’s thigh.
“Nice!” Agathe cheered.
“I’ll give her that one,” Carma said, taking a step back. “But…you can’t win them all.” With that she came in again, starting with a series of kicks and then landing with an arm wrapped around Samantha’s head. She flipped her over and turned to place her in a choke hold.
Samantha struggled for a moment, working to get her chin in between Carma’s arm so that the hold wouldn’t work, but it was damn tight.
“Give?” Carma asked.
Finally, Samantha grunted and tapped the floor.
“Guess that means I beat the two of you too, by proxy,” Carma said with a chuckle, glancing back over to Voira and Agathe.
“Ahh, I think we’ll have to just call it a tie,” Voira said. “If anything, we wore Sam out for you.”
Carma laughed. “We’ll just have to reschedule something with us then, huh?”
Samantha pushed herself up and rubbed her neck, annoyed that she’d let someone get the better of her. “You know, if we’d had weapons and me my cloak and armor…”
“Trust me, you want to fight with weapons?” Carma laughed. “Name the place and time.”
“It’s not going to be today,” Napalm stated, entering as he said it. “Hadrian said we’re entering the gate to your star system, Carma. Everyone should get ready.�
�
“How long will it take to get to the planet after going through the gate?” Samantha asked, wondering if she had time to take another nap. She was feeling quite beat.
“Since Arzan doesn’t have super high tech in the space sense,” Napalm replied, “Hadrian tells me the gate lets out very close to the planet. We should be landing within the hour.”
“Damn, that is fast.” She looked at Carma and smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing your home.”
Carma winked. “You should be. It’s the best planet out there, because it’s mine.”
“We’ll see,” Voira said.
“You can’t really think it’s yours, right?” Carma asked. “I mean, we saw your planet. It’s like a giant rust bucket full of poopy-filled rust.”
Voira frowned, but Agathe laughed. “There’s no arguing that, but some of us like it like that.”
“Right.” Carma shook her head, looking at the two Acome women with confusion. “You prefer rust and dirt to beauty. Sure you do.”
“Anyone wants to be there to watch the arrival, better come quick.” Napalm waved them to follow, then turned and went back the way he came. Dex was up in a flash, following him through the door with his death-like cloak trailing behind.
“You really don’t want to miss it,” Carma said, then took Samantha by the arm and led the way. “Come on ladies, you just got your butts kicked. Now it’s time to have your minds blown.”
16
Arzan Docks
It wasn’t the fresh air that caught Samantha’s attention as she exited the Noraldian and first set foot on Arzan. Nor was it the way the sunlight seemed to warm her in a completely different way than anything she had felt before. What really caught her attention was the way that it seemed to be snowing glowing, golden flakes.
Carma skipped past her like a schoolgirl, or what Samantha imagined a schoolgirl raised in a world not occupied with an alien invasion would be like. She threw out her arms and spun, mouth open and head back as she caught the golden flakes in her mouth and laughed.
“Come on, Sam,” she said when she realized she was being watched. “There’s nothing like the mana of Arzan.”
“Mana?” Samantha asked. “Like… from the bible?”
“Is it?”
“No,” Kwan interjected. “It wasn’t described like this in the bible at all.”
“You’re a bible expert now?” Napalm asked, walking past him and standing with his rifle over one shoulder, turning to watch the sky.
Kwan simply nodded, patted his chest once, and kept walking.
“He’s actually quite religious,” Jackal explained, as he too walked past. “I’ve never been able to get clear answers from Hadrian.” He nodded to where Hadrian stood talking with two of the female Arzan representatives at the end of the platform. “But Kwan? I asked him just one time, in passing, and he won’t shut up about it.”
“Kwan?” Samantha had a hard time imagining the man ever not shutting up about anything. He was generally quiet, focused on his thoughts, she assumed. Now she wondered if half of the time she had thought he was meditating, he had actually been praying.
“How…?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t not believe, exactly, but… I mean, I don’t know. But with everything going on, and all we’re seeing out here in space, doesn’t that contradict his beliefs in any way?”
“Maybe if his beliefs were tied to some other person’s interpretation of them, sure.” Jackal held out a hand, letting the flakes alight on his skin and then vanish with a glimmer like light reflecting on a passing car. “But then you’d have to wonder whose interpretation you’re believing, and question why. If one simply believes without pretending to believe they know everything about that particular belief, it’s much more flexible and freeing.”
“And less egocentric,” she replied. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re a believer too.”
“I don’t know.” Jackal shrugged, then put his helmet back on so that she couldn’t see his face. He turned to walk away. “I really just… don’t know.”
“You don’t deal well with expressing your own beliefs, you know that?” she called after him.
“I do know that,” he replied with a wave, not even bothering to look back. She would have to crack him at some point, get to know the real Jackal. But right now she just wanted to see if Carma’s people, the Arzanians, were all as whacko as she figured they had to be.
She had known her fair share of women and men back on Earth who flaunted their sexuality, but the way Carma presented herself made it seem to be a planetary thing. If everyone here was anything like her, Samantha couldn’t see how they went a single day without exploding.
Although, she realized, that could explain the constant state of warfare she had been briefed on. Males and females at war in a world where either group could reproduce without the other. It didn’t make the slightest sense.
Samantha stuck her head back and let one of the flakes fall into her mouth, her eyes widening at the tingling sensation. It was like a snowflake, but warm, and as it melted—if you could call it that—a tingle went through her.
“What is it?” she asked.
Carma stood beaming at her, hands on her hips. She had removed her body armor and was back in the outfit she had worn the first time they had met. Silk cloths hung around her body, leaving little to the imagination. The other two women Hadrian was talking with wore similar clothing, so apparently that outfit was normal here.
“I told you. Mana.”
“No, I don’t mean what’s it called. Where’s it come from?”
Carma scrunched her nose, looked at the sky, and then a wide grin spread across her face. “Don’t be silly. It comes from the sky. It’s like your version of rain, only our particles of light catch the water and combine. It also has a healing effect. On my planet, I’m a different person. For example…” She winked as she weaved her hands around, catching the flakes as she did and pushing her hands together until her palms almost touched, like smashing the air together.
To Samantha’s surprise, a burst of light shone from the one-inch area between Carma’s hands. She stepped up to Samantha and ran her hands across her forehead, and the light seemed to enter her.
A moment of sudden clarity revealed every emotion running through her body, followed by a flash of memories she didn’t even remember having. There was her mom, entering the apartment wearing her Marine Corps uniform, a laugh and tears as she stooped to take little Samantha in her arms. A Christmas tree sparkled behind them, though it was meager. Grandma came in from the other room and nearly dropped one of the two glasses of steaming apple cider she had been bringing for Samantha, then quickly set them down and ran to join in the hug.
When had that been? The answer came to her as easily as the thought—three years before the Syndicate invasion, when her mom had returned for a surprise visit.
It was a beautiful memory, but at the same time it reminded Samantha of the fact that she might never see her mom again. The pain was too much, so she pushed it out, replacing it with a time she had befriended a neighborhood boy. They had chased a cat through the alleys, pretending to be there to liberate the cat from alien forces.
Even then she had taken on the protective role, she realized.
More memories hit her suddenly, like a barrage of warmth and bliss. She felt she could be lost in those thoughts forever.
“No,” she hissed, pushing the memories back. When she opened her eyes, Carma was standing less than a foot away, head cocked as she stared into Samantha’s face. She startled, as if not expecting the girl to be able to escape the memories.
“No… what?”
“I’m here to change the future,” Samantha replied. “That’s what I committed to. For me, that means no living in the past.”
Carma frowned. “How can you possibly affect the future if you don’t properly understand your past?”
The question bothered Samantha. But instead of trying to come up with an answer, she n
odded toward Hadrian. “Maybe we should join them.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Together they made their way over, arriving just as Hadrian was finishing up. He turned to the group and said, “They’ve agreed to hear us out.”
“Wait, hear us out?” Carma asked. “I thought we agreed. I’d broker the return of these men to their side. Me.”
“Plans change.”
She blinked, and Samantha wondered if the woman would explode. “You don’t understand, clearly. My sisters-in-arms could be released, prisoners of war that I can earn back with the price of these men. It has to be my way.”
A glance at Samantha showed her that Carma thought this was her cue to intervene.
“I really don’t know what makes sense here,” Samantha admitted. “But… I think we should hear Hadrian out.”
Hadrian nodded his appreciation. “I know you see your way as best, Carma, but—”
“But! This is my planet.” Carma stepped forward, hand held up at his face in a threatening gesture. “Don’t make me regret joining you.”
Hadrian shook his head, eyes full of concern, but determined. “The problem is bigger than your war. We’re talking the survival of the universe here, and I will have both sides talk, to broker a peace if possible.”
Carma turned on him again, even more furious. Even the falling golden flakes didn’t soften her expression.
Finally, she stormed off past him without another word.
“When?” Samantha asked. “When are we all meeting? When do you need us?”
“Tonight at dusk,” Hadrian replied. He turned to the rest of them and then stopped at Napalm. “I’ll need the men we found up there guarded. None of the female Arzanian are to get near them, do you understand?”
“It won’t happen,” Napalm replied, his voice firm.
“Good. Keep the Shadows on the ship too, unless it gets dirty out there. We can’t have any more problems to deal with than we already have. It’s going to be sticky.”
Jackal still had his helmet on, and his voice filtered through its speaker as he said, “You’re saying that, on a planet with scantily clad, beautiful women, you want us to guard the ship and those on it? Our full, undivided attention there and nowhere else?”
