Night Raiders

by James David Victor

  “Good.” Dalia nodded. “Can you tell me when this started? This storm?”

  The mental image of Jake faded, and Dalia blinked her eyes open to see that Jake was opening his own eyes at the same time. His face looked haggard and tired, but much better than it had before.

  “Since we left the galaxy,” he murmured into the space between them. “Ever since we came into the Void, and it’s only been getting worse.”

  Something to do with the Void? Dalia frowned. That was strange. She had never sensed anything out of the ordinary about the Night’s Quarter, as her people called it. And she had also never heard of any Ilythian lore pertaining to this. What was so different about the youth?

  “Well, you know how to control it now,” she said carefully. It wasn’t that this mystery didn’t pick at her mind, but she was also highly aware of just what they were here to do. To carry on Anders’s mission. To stop the Archon weapon. There would be enough time for mystical philosophy after. If there was an after, that was.

  “Anders…” Dalia blinked. “You said that you could sense him?”

  Jake’s eyes widened once again in apparent fear. “I can. And he’s in pain!”

  17

  Deathmatch Revisited

  Anders hissed in pain, since Gerhardt wasn’t charitable about removing his bonds, cuffing him again and throwing him to his knees in front of the burning bell.

  Well, it’s clear that I haven’t made any friends here. Anders winced. This view was underlined when he looked up to see the straight-backed form of the Night Raider guard August regarding him with apparent scrutiny. Anders had seen looks like that before, and it had always come from professional fighters and brawlers—those who weren’t too eager to rush into a fight but took their time to understand their opponent.

  Well, I’m also a professional. Anders got to his feet to look at his opponent, the man who had chosen to fight him. For any less-experienced fighter, this would be the part where there would be an exchange of threats and braggadocio.

  But not for us, huh? Anders held the other man’s cool stare, before the man nodded slowly.

  Yep, this one is going to be a tough one. Anders wished that he’d a chance to get himself fit beforehand. His body was still in pain from being slammed and battered by the Meat Grinder before, but his training had also taught him that you could never predict the moment of a fight. They happened to you, not for you.

  “So, you want to try your luck against our best?” Gerhardt roared, again playing to the audience of hungry, bloodthirsty raiders.

  Anders spared him a condescending look. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, would I?”

  Smack! The Night Raider’s fist slammed out and caught him on the side of the jaw, making him take a step back but not putting him on the ground. It was a good jab. Anders clicked his jaw and shook his head, once again tasting blood. But it wasn’t good enough. He raised his eyes to the leader of the scavengers, and the officer’s eyes were as cold as ice.

  “You gotta show some respect in this place, policeman,” Gerhardt said loudly to the cheers of his adoring crowds. That was before he dropped his voice to a low hiss that only Anders could hear. “And don’t think for a moment you can upstage me.”

  Yeah, Anders agreed with his earlier assumption. From the look in Gerhardt’s eyes, it was obvious that the leader of the raiders was going to have him killed somehow. Even if he survived this fight, it would only be a matter of time.

  Luckily, however, time was the very commodity that he could afford to spend. He wondered if Patch and Dalia and Jake had managed to get to the field ansible. He wondered if they were even still alive.

  Gerhardt picked up the metal bar that was serving as his hammer and thumped the upside-down bell once, twice, and three times, bringing the crowd to an expectant silence. “Contestants, do you both accept your sacred duty?” he shouted.

  Just like before, the crowd was stamping their feet after this announcement. “I do,” August called, and, when Gerhardt swung the metal mallet in Anders’s direction, the MPB officer nodded.

  “Do you accept that only one of you can win? No hesitation? No mercy?” Gerhardt spoke what was obviously the ritualized words. He didn’t even wait for either of the contestants to respond before he carried on. “Then prepare yourselves!”

  There was little for Anders or August to do, as both men were devoid of accoutrements from either their previous fight or, in Anders’s case, his capture. Instead, Anders took the time to study his opponent.

  A little smaller than me, Anders thought. Which meant that he had the longer range, but also that the little man would have a lower center of gravity. It would be harder for him to get knocked off his feet.

  He watched August roll his shoulders, stretch, and limber up. He knew what he was doing, and every action that the man took was purposeful. This isn’t the sort of man who is going to waste time, Anders thought.

  Frack. He wondered, again, if this had been the right way to buy the others their time.

  Just as before, two of the guards stepped forward with their heavy leather gauntlets to place two salvage-swords into the seemingly ever-burning coals of the bonfire. The heat radiating from the bell was uncomfortable, and Anders knew that this had to be part of the challenge as well.

  And there, on the floor, he could still see the smears of dried blood where his previous opponents had fought. Where August had fought, he reminded himself, and won.

  A loud clang sounded as both glowing-edged swords were dumped on the floor between the two men, but Anders didn’t take his eyes from his opponent, who similarly wasn’t taking his eyes from him. He saw him bend his back knee a little, relaxing into his stance to give him some explosive power when he pushed off.

  The heavy gauntlets were pushed into Anders’s hands, and he pulled them on. The blade nearest to him was still technically a longsword, with a handle that was long enough to be wielded two handed.

  What the frack do I know about sword-fighting? Anders tried to control the thought. He had done a tiny bit as a youth in the academy, but that had mostly been as an exercise sport. There had not been any expectation that this was a real survival skill.

  But his basic training had given him other weapon skills—bayonet work, staff-fighting, even knife-fighting. All the more regular sorts of equipment that he might be expected to wield at short notice, on the streets or on the battlefield. He wondered just how many of those movements and skills would be transferable.

  I guess I’m going to find out soon enough. He grimaced. What he wouldn’t give for Moriarty’s tactical suggestions right about now! He was painfully aware that this ‘August’ must have more experience using these blades than he did, putting him at a distinct disadvantage.

  I need a strategy. Anders’s mind was racing as Gerhardt raised his fists high in the air for the crowd to stamp and thunder their feet, crazed with anticipation already.

  “Fight!” Gerhardt roared, and Anders saw his enemy spring forward with a murderous glint in his eyes.

  He’s going to be better at swords than me, Anders knew as he saw August lunge forward. The man was springing into a roll, surely designed to carry him across the floor to the glowing blade nearest to him.

  I need to buy as much time as possible.

  Anders was already moving at the same time, powering himself forward on lunging feet.

  August was coming up out of his roll, right on top of his near blade as Anders leapt, throwing himself across the floor in a slide.

  “Ach!” Anders slid past his own blade, stamping out at the man’s outstretched arm just as it closed on the metal handle of one of the burning weapons.

  If there was anything that Anders knew about this fight, it was that if either of them was wielding a smoldering sword, it would probably end a lot faster than if neither were.

  And Anders had been trained in street grappling and subjugation. He knew far more ways to halt and block and hopefully disarm an opponent while keeping them
alive than how to out-fence them.

  The ex-MPB officer just had to hope that he knew more than the man in front of him.

  Anders pushed off the floor with his off hand, twisting his body as he did so to throw an elbow at August’s neck. It didn’t hit where he wanted it to, striking the top of the raider’s bare chest instead, but the guard hadn’t seen it coming and hadn’t blocked.

  After all, Anders had been banking on the fact that his opponent wouldn’t dream of the fact that someone else would forget about the burning swords in front of them.

  August fell back, away from the blades, but was twisting as he did so to throw off any grapple attempt that Anders might make.

  Damn. Anders’s gloved hands slid off the writhing form. This man also knows how to fight without weapons.

  “Ooof!” Anders was shoved backwards, not a technical or a professional move by any stretch of the imagination, but one that bought his opponent the time he needed to jump to his feet as Anders quickly followed suit.

  The scavenger guard threw a jab. A quick, no-nonsense, straight jab that he didn’t even hesitate over. Anders’s first reaction was to duck, but he resisted it in a flash of body-memory as he recalled his MPB training. Instead, he took the blow on his shoulder as he hunkered and raised his arms in a classic boxing stance.

  It hurt, but it wasn’t anywhere near the sort of pain that a superheated sword blade would have.

  He countered with a forward stomp, but August had skittered to one side, and he surprised Anders by not closing on him.

  Oh, damn! Anders gritted his teeth. The guard had brought himself a couple meters and a chance to re-evaluate the fight now that it looked to be a brawl rather than a sword fight. Anders saw the man settle into the classic arms-up posture of an experienced street fighter.

  There is a reason this guy is the darling of the Death Palace, isn’t there? Anders groaned.

  18

  The Chamber

  “This way!” Patch was saying excitedly, but Dalia could detect a note of panic to his voice. He was following the instructions that his node was relaying to his visor-helmet, which must have displayed how close they were getting.

  To his field ansible. The thing that can jam the Archon device, Dalia noted. She tried to find comfort in that fact as they hurried up another steel stairwell, climbing through the body of the hulk.

  The Ilythian kept one eye on Jake in front of her as she saw him struggling to maintain that internal sense of calm that she had encouraged in him. The youth was holding it together much better, but he was still a long way from being able to control the storm of terrible emotions that he was feeling. Dalia could feel the undercurrent of tension radiating from him, and occasionally a burst of stronger panic, terror, or fury.

  But where is it all coming from? Dalia couldn’t get her head around the mystery. It was perplexing, as all Ilythians were taught that their natural abilities were just another facet of living beings connecting with each other—biokinesis, or pheromone, or subconscious signaling. Whatever the current theory was, it was based on the fact that you needed living beings to generate and sustain that force.

  So why is it stronger out here, in the Void? Dalia just couldn’t understand. And it hadn’t come from the Night Raiders, as far as she could ascertain.

  “Ah…” Her thoughts were disrupted by the sound of Patch’s worried voice ahead of them. He was at the top of the next flight of stairs and standing beside a wheel-lock door, again with the rounded porthole in its top.

  “What is it?” Dalia asked, moving past Jake to stand at the young Voider’s side.

  “To be honest, I have no idea,” Patch murmured, nodding to the porthole window as Dalia stepped up to look.

  She saw a cone-like room, with large and small metal pipes forming buttresses as they ran up to a blocky unit at the apex. Dalia wondered if they were at the very top of the pyramid-ziggurat. They had certainly climbed enough stairs!

  But it wasn’t the room that the Voider was concerned with, Dalia saw. It was what was inside it. People, and an object.

  “Is that it?” Dalia breathed as she squinted. The room on the other side was gloomy, with small strings of LED lights here and there throughout the large space.

  “Ah, a part of it is. The middle part,” Patch breathed in nervous anxiety.

  Dalia could see what the man was referring to. There was a team of perhaps five Night Raiders, again wearing the part-armor and variety of weapons that made them look like mercenaries and pirates. These men and women were moving from control stands of flickering lights, apparently checking and re-checking the calibrations of the central object, which looked to be a large half-built sphere, with its open side pointing toward them, where a contraption was held in its center by rods and wires. It reminded Dalia a little bit of those ancient sorts of human telescopes that she had seen in her history lessons.

  The central ‘thing’ appeared to be a hook of metal components, bulky and boxy at one end with a sharp ‘hook’ of what Dalia knew was a miniaturized ansible. She could see the multiple black, reflective rings growing smaller and smaller to a tiny crystalline ball at the end. Wires splayed around the bulkier ‘handle’ of the thing, some of them attached to the rods that held it in the center of the device.

  “Is that some kind of magnifier?” Dalia hazarded a guess, relying on the remembered image of radio-telescopes.

  “I, I guess…” Patch said. Dalia regarded him to see his eyes widen, almost in hope. “If it is, if the Night Raiders are amplifying my jamming signal, then that is truly excellent news for us!” He grinned. “After all, we want to jam the Archon device, don’t we?”

  There was a low groan from behind them at the merest mention of the words Archon device, and Dalia turned to see Jake slump against the wall. She didn’t need to ask how he was doing. She could see his face blanche behind his faceplate, and she could feel the storm of angry feelings only growing stronger around the boy. Even Patch beside her made an uncomfortable noise as the wave hit him.

  “Jake, remember what I taught you. Breathe through it. Find your center…” Dalia said, moving toward him.

  “Don’t!” The youth looked up at her suddenly, his arms folded tight over his chest as if to contain everything inside.

  Dalia froze. If the youth lost control, then those emotions could incapacitate all of them. They could even send someone like Patch—a human without any discernible PK talent—insane.

  “You can do this,” Dalia murmured softly, confidently. “I know you can, Jake. You’re stronger than you realize…”

  “I know. I’ve got this,” Jake said, and his forced breathing was audible over their suit communicators. “It’s not what you think. It’s coming from in there!” He suddenly turned and pointed to the door.

  “Oh.” Patch’s voice was too small for the gravity of the realization that passed from his eyes to Dalia’s. Both looked back to the porthole window, and back to the telescope-like device that surrounded the jammer.

  Dalia remembered precisely what Patch had said about the field ansible that he had created and that the Night Raiders had stolen. That it was a super-advanced scanner-transmitter, a copy of the one that the Golden Throne used to monitor and make contact with the Archon device.

  Patch had recreated and modified it to scramble that connection.

  But the Ilythian knew enough about the basic principles of technology to know that anything that could be done could also be undone…

  “That’s not a jammer anymore, is it?” Dalia whispered in horror. “It’s a transmitter.”

  19

  Blooded Floor

  Thwack! The raider named August darted forward and delivered a strong, solid swing that Anders didn’t have time to block. It hit the side of Anders’s face like a hammer, making his head rebound and blood fill his mouth as he bit the inside of his cheek.

  Get back, he told himself, springing away as he knew that, in a brawl, every successful strike would be followed up to gain
the advantage.

  He had been right. August pressed forward with a quick jab toward Anders’s face that he took on his forearms. But that wasn’t the ‘real’ blow, was it? Anders knew that those jabs were just a way to soften up an opponent, to keep them busy and disorientated until they let their guard down.

  Thump. Another bruising blow, but this time under Anders’s block and just above his hips. He hissed in pain, throwing a jab of his own, just for it to be batted away by the raider.

  And now Anders’s guard was open, exposing his chin for a perfect uppercut. The ex-officer saw the man’s shoulders rolling as he threw all of the muscles from his thighs to his back in the explosive blow that would lift him off his feet.

  Frack this. Anders dropped his opposite knee, making him swerve on his hip as the blow sailed past his head.

  The man called August had put all his strength into that blow, and it would take a moment to bring that momentum back in, Anders calculated in a split-second. His guard was wide open as Anders dropped his own and snaked out with his lead hand.

  Not in a strike, however. Trading punches was a fool’s game if you were roughly similar bodyweights, Anders knew. A boxing match between himself and this August would be pretty much a matter of luck for who landed the best blow, and Anders was already starting to tire.

  The lieutenant’s hand snaked out to grab the man’s wrist as he jumped forward. August had no option but to keep turning with his opponent or else have his shoulder popped out of its socket.

  And then, Anders hooked one of his ankles behind the man’s leg and shoved.

  August went down, folding over Anders’s hip and slamming against the floor as Anders gave the man’s wrist a sharp twist and jumped back.