by R S Penney
Bending her knees, Anna reached up with one hand to catch her opponent's wrist. She used the other to offer a quick jab to the face, a gruesome hit that made Isara's head snap backwards.
Anna pressed her advantage.
Her fists were a blur, pounding the other woman's chest again and again, forcing Isara back across the floor. Rage welled up inside her. She drew back her arm for one final punch to the face.
Isara caught her wrist, holding Anna's arm extended. Before she could think, the other woman's open palm slammed into her nose and fuzzed her vision. Anna was made to double over.
Isara jumped and brought her elbow down between Anna's shoulder blades, forcing her down onto her stomach. Pain dampened awareness of almost everything else, but she sensed her enemy pacing a circuit around her body until she stood on Anna's left side.
Isara raised one foot off the ground as if to bring it down on the back of Anna's neck and sever her spinal cord.
Anna rolled onto her back, catching the other woman's foot as it descended. With a piercing scream, she gave a shove and forced her adversary to stumble away.
Curling up into a ball, Anna sprang off the floor and landed upright with her fists raised in front of herself. Sweat made her shirt cling to her back and matted white-tipped bangs to her forehead. This fight was going on too long. Isara was Slade's deadliest agent; given enough time, she would wear down any opponent through attrition.
She reminded herself that this wasn't the real conflict. The true battle was being waged between Keli and Adren. Seth's spatial awareness painted the image of them in Anna's mind; they were standing face to face amid a sea of empty tables, staring intently at one another. Anna hoped that whatever they were doing, it would be over soon.
Isara was standing with her back to a line of windows that looked out upon a street filled with police cruisers. For half a second, Anna prayed that one of those enterprising officers might take a shot and put Isara down for her. Spatial awareness would not be able to warn her of impending danger, not with a pane of glass in the way.
But no.
The cops were too smart for that. This wasn't Earth, where police fired a gun every time they were spooked by the whistle of a strong wind. A stray bullet might hit Anna. Or Keli. Or one of the civilians. And the tinted windows would make it hard to know what they were shooting at anyway. The cops would not act without orders.
Stiffening as she took control of her anger, Isara drew in a breath and then started forward. “All right,” she said, drawing a knife from a small sheath on her belt. “Let's be done with this!”
She crossed the distance in seconds and slashed at Anna's face.
Leaning back, Anna watched the tip of some very sharp steel pass right in front of her eyes. With a growl, Isara reversed her swing, now slashing at Anna's belly.
Anna hopped back.
The other woman was in a fury now, standing there with flushed cheeks, the knife gripped so tightly her hand trembled. She strode forward, drew back her arm and stabbed at Anna's face.
Anna leaned to her right and brought her left hand up to swat Isara's wrist, pushing the knife away. With a quick pivot, she responded with a hard right-hook that connected with Isara's cheek.
The woman flinched and staggered.
Anna jumped, turning belly up in midair, and kicked with both feet. Her shoes went into Isara's chest, and in that instant of contact, she applied a touch of Bent Gravity. Just enough to make a point.
The other woman flew backward as if blown by a strong wind, crashing into one of the windows and leaving a web of cracks in the glass. She fell to the floor, landing on her hands and knees.
“It's over, Isara,” Anna said. “You can't win this.”
Isara was down on all fours, shaking her head. “So it would appear.” She looked up at Anna with a flushed face. “But you're a fool if you think my defeat is your victory.”
Pressing a hand to her chest, Isara grunted as she stood up. “Multi-tool active!” she bellowed. “Execute Program Nine.”
Anna barely had a second to wonder what else was about to come her way when the skylight shattered and shards of glass rained down on the tiled floor. A shirtless figure dropped through the opening, carrying something slung over its shoulder.
The ziarogat landed in front of the exit, bending its knees on impact. Tall and pale, the man this creature had once been was actually quite handsome, even with a completely shaved head and those haunting metallic eyes.
The creature moved like a snake, tossing a thick sheet of veiny skin down on the floor. Anna recognized it right away. An organic SlipGate. So, Isara had come here with an escape plan. The other woman was already running for the exit. Anna would have tried to stop her, but she had larger concerns.
The ziarogat scanned the room with those silver eyes, its gaze settling on her. It thrust one fist out, pointing the weapon on its gauntlet at her.
Anna broke into a mad dash, one hand extended as she crafted a Bending. Moving the Bending with her as she ran was twice as hard as remaining stationary, but right now, that was her only option. Bullets hit the patch of curved space-time, looped around and flew back toward the creature that had loosed them. “Okay, Snake,” she whispered. “Just you and me!”
She released her Bending and saw the ziarogat moving off to her left with a hole in its chest, just below its collarbone. Silver blood ran over its chest in thin trails, but Snake showed no sign of pain.
There was a table between her and the ziarogat.
Anna ran for it.
When she drew near, she jumped and flipped upside-down, grabbing the top of one chair as she flew. She turned upright and hurled the chair with all her might, augmenting the throw with Bent Gravity.
The wounded ziarogat lifted its weapon just in time to receive a plastic chair to the face, a chair that shattered on impact. Snake fell backward, crashing into the wall.
The instant her feet hit the floor, Anna drew her sidearm, lifted the weapon in both hands and fired as she ran. Snake already had a cybernetic arm raised to shield itself. A force-field appeared, intercepting her bullets.
Anna kept firing, shot after shot. Not because she thought there was any chance of punching through that force-field, but so long as the ziarogat was taking refuge behind it, it couldn't return fire.
The force-field came at her.
Anna leaped, flipping over the wall of electrostatic energy as it passed beneath her. At the apex of her jump, she erected a Time Bubble in the shape of a tube that extended from her body to the floor. She fell through it, landing hard on the tiles and trying not to think about the burning sensation in her skin.
Her bubble collapsed.
The ziarogat stood before her with one fist pointed upward at the spot where Anna had been seconds earlier. It fired, loosing ammo into the empty air. Without the bubble, it would have anticipated her trajectory and killed her before she landed.
Anna took aim and fired. Bullet after bullet pierced the ziarogat's body, forcing the creature back against the wall, silver blood flying with every shot. Snake trembled, trying to remain upright.
Abruptly, she felt the twisting sensation that meant someone – or something – else was Bending space-time. She caught a glimpse of Isara standing next to a triangle of gray flesh while a warp bubble formed around her body. The other woman blew a kiss before the bubble vanished. Damn her.
Snake was recovering.
The ziarogat lifted its arm but froze partway through the act of taking aim. It just stared at her without a hint of emotion on that dead face. Anna didn't spare a moment to wonder why it had stopped.
She killed it with a shot to the head.
The ziarogat fell to the floor, revealing a mess of silver blood on the wall behind it and a hole as well. People often forgot that bullets didn't stop when they hit their targets; they kept going until something more substantive than a squishy human body blocked their path. There was a good chance she had damaged some of the equipment behind
that wall. A small price to pay if it meant preventing that thing from killing people.
Fatigue hit her hard, and she fell to her knees, folding up and covering her face with both hands. “Oh boy…” Adrenaline had prevented her from noticing the strain she had put on her body, but now that the danger had passed…
Using her powers so many times in quick succession had nearly pushed her to her breaking point. Bleakness take her, whoever had created the ziarogati had known exactly how to bring down a Justice Keeper. And that scared her.
In her mind, she saw Keli standing a few feet away with one hand stretched toward the dead ziarogat. The telepath let her arm drop, then came forward at a quick pace. “It's over,” she said. “Adren has been subdued.”
“Yeah,” Anna whispered. “It's over.”
“What now?”
Anna looked around to find that most of the civilians had fled. One or two waited by the fire exit, watching her. No doubt they had observed her battle with the ziarogat with a kind of morbid curiosity. She would have been angry if she wasn't so tired. Some people were just trying to get themselves killed. “Now, we clean up this mess,” Anna said. “We get these people checked out by a doctor…”
She looked to Adren, who was passed out in the middle of the floor. “And we tell his victims that the terror is over.”
Chapter 15
Jack closed his eyes as he felt the sonic pulses wash over him. The very air around his body seemed to vibrate, and the walls of the cramped booth in which he stood were humming. His skin tingled. He let his mind drift, which turned out to be a poor decision.
As usual, the solitude of his thoughts was invaded by images of Ben's face staring in horror, pleading with him to do something, to react with the speed of a Justice Keeper. To save him before Leo dragged that knife across his throat. It was the condemnation in Ben's eyes that made Jack want to punch the wall of the shower.
Guilt washed over him like a tidal wave, echoed by a pang of grief from Summer. Jack focused his thoughts with a simple count. One, two, three, four, five. In less than a minute, the image of Ben was gone. “Vibe shower completed,” the computer said as the sonic pulses faded. Jack sighed..
He threw on some clothes – black pants and a plain, gray t-shirt – and emerged into the shuttle's cabin. A diamond-shaped SlipGate stood between him and the table, its shiny metal surface reflecting the light.
Vibe showers always made him feel a little bit odd; he was told that they cleansed the body even better than the standard variety – and they were a useful method of water conservation for a small ship like this – but he still preferred the old-fashioned method. Maybe he was turning into his grandpa. Or worse…his dad.
Jack went to the small refrigerator.
He dropped to one knee before it, then pulled it open to expose a wide selection of prepackaged meals. He chose oatmeal, this morning, reaching in to snag a little plastic package with a resealable lid.
That went into the heating unit above the fridge, and then there was nothing to do but wait patiently while his breakfast cooked. Two days had passed since he arrived in this desolate solar system on the edge of Dead Space, and so far he had seen absolutely nothing coming through the massive SlipGate outside.
Sitting on the table with his arms folded, Jack frowned at the wall. “Two days,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “A few more like this, and the boredom is gonna drive me insane. They'll find me gibbering in a chair after having pulled my hair out.”
The heating unit dinged.
Jack used a tap on the wall to pour himself a drink. The shuttle's water reclamation systems would recycle almost every last drop that he consumed, meaning that he could stay out here for many days at a time. Food was another matter. He had enough for one week; after that, he would have to resupply at Petross Station.
He took his breakfast up to the cockpit. Lights came on as soon as the doors slid apart, revealing two panels side by side at the back and a narrow aisle between them that led to the main controls.
The canopy window looked out on a field of stars with one vibrant blue point shining brighter than the rest. Oniara Prime was a B-Type star with roughly thirteen times the mass of Earth's sun, and its intense luminosity was part of what of what powered the SuperGate in this system.
Jack sat in the pilot's seat with a bowl of oatmeal in his lap, then leaned forward to peer through the window. “Two bloody days.” His voice was gravelly. “If you guys don't show up soon, I'm gonna think you don't like me.”
He slid one hand across the SmartGlass control panel, causing it to light up with a series of program windows. Enlarging one, he found a list of sensor records for multiple consecutive twelve-hour periods. He opened the most recent and found nothing useful. A small spike in the solar wind – nothing the shuttle couldn't handle – an asteroid drifting by some fifty thousand kilometers away. Pretty boring stuff, really.
Touching fingertips to the control panel, he slid one window aside to allow the next app to take prominence. The computer had learned to predict his needs, and it knew that he would want to call Larani.
Jack brought up a menu that allowed him to control the SlipGate, then accessed its interstellar communications protocols. A galaxy map appeared on the screen, displaying other Gates throughout Leyrian, Antauran and Ragnosian space.
He selected Leyria, then zoomed in to find hundreds of available Gates across the planet's surface. He chose one in Denabria. From there, his call was routed into the local telecommunications network.
Larani's face appeared on his console; she was sitting with her back to the window, sunlight streaming in behind her. “Report,” she barked. That was it: just one word spoken in a curt tone of voice.
“There's nothing to report.”
“No one has come through the Gate?”
Doubled up in his seat, Jack scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal and shoved it into his mouth. “Well, I've only been here for two days,” he said. “I could sit here for months, and they might come through the day after I call it quits and go home.”
Larani put on a patient expression as she nodded slowly in agreement. “I see your point,” she began. “But we need to present something of substance if we expect Council to take this seriously.”
“I know.”
“Simply going to them with nothing but supposition would provide Dusep with an opportunity to spin all sorts of damaging rumors. The last thing we need is an uptick in anti-alien sentiment.”
Shutting his eyes, Jack drew air through his nose. “I understand,” he said with more than a little resignation in his voice. “I wouldn't have called except for the fact that I think I'm going stir-crazy out here.”
To his surprise, Larani smiled and shook her head. “I did offer to send Agent Seyrus with you,” she reminded him. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
True, but a week-long trip in a cramped little shuttle with a woman who had once been his friend with benefits wasn't exactly the best way to give his new relationship a solid foundation. Of course, he couldn't tell Larani that. Summer was amused; she had kept him company several times over the last three days.
Chitchatting with his Nassai, however, only did so much to ease his boredom. Time flowed differently when he entered that trance-like state. Or rather, his mind worked at an accelerated pace. He could spend what felt like hours talking to Summer and wake to find that only a few minutes had passed.
Larani sat forward with hands on the arms of her chair, her smile broadening as she stared into the camera. “You'll be glad to hear that Anna captured the telepath yesterday,” she said. “Her last report indicates that she's wrapping things up in Telsaran.”
“Excellent!”
“It wouldn't surprise me if she asked permission to join you in the Oniara System at some point in the next three days.”
Grinning despite his best efforts, Jack felt his face grow warm. “That's our Anna,” he said. “But it's probably best if you just let me finish this mission on
my own. If I don't see anything in the next three days, I'll come home.”
“Fair enough,” Larani said. “I'd stay and chat but I do have duties to attend to. Keep me posted, Agent Hunter.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
The screen when dark, and he found himself alone in the cockpit with nothing but Summer's comforting presence in the back of his mind for company. Jack sighed. Maybe he should play another game. So far, he had challenged the computer to five rounds of Chess and had lost four times. That Leyrian game, Dri'kana looked interesting.
He finished his oatmeal, which the package labeled as the Maple and Brown Sugar flavour. It was pretty good for field rations. Maybe he could snatch a few packs of that stuff for his own refrigerator.
An hour passed with Jack reclining in the seat with hands folded behind his head, playing some trivia game that focused on Leyrian history. Keeping his mind occupied held the guilt at bay, though it did sometimes feel as if Ben's ghost was hovering around him, just begging for his attention. Jack could handle that. The pain was fading. He just needed a little company. He planned to call Anna later and hear all about the-
His console beeped.
Jack sat upright, his hands gripping the armrests as he studied the readouts. “Well, kiss my grits!” he exclaimed in a southern accent. “A visitor at long last. I do hope they'll stay for a friendly game of charades.”
His shuttle was positioned some fifty million kilometers away from the SuperGate, but depending on its intensity, a warp-field could be detected from several solar systems away. When active, that Gate was a beacon to anyone within twelve lightyears. That was a fun quirk of space travel: anyone moving at FTL speeds was like a blazing sun to any nearby ships, but people who remained at sub-light velocities were practically invisible until you got within spitting distance.
Jack wasn't worried. His shuttle was small; its thermal emissions were minimal. So long as he avoided using his warp engines, the ships coming through that Gate would fly past without even noticing him.
His scanners registered a massive warp bubble forming in front of the SuperGate. It was similar to ones used by ordinary SlipGates to transport people around the world in a matter of seconds. Except this bubble was large enough to encompass Toronto.