“Can I have a look at the armory as well please, it might be better to have more than one weapon.”
“You can do that. You are doing well at this Sah Lee. I am impressed that you have stuck with this without complaining or slacking off. When you want to visit the armory, or if there’s anything else you want, message me.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Carry on Private, I’m going to stay and watch for a while.”
Sah Lee returned to her position where a security officer had left her a pile of body armor. Sah Lee pulled it on and did some light stretching, waiting for her first trainer. Si’ir Monn and Ranesh walked in together. “I didn’t realize I was going to get two of you straight away.”
“Yeah, we’re coming in two’s now, you tough little shit.” Si’ir Monn said.
Sah Lee grinned, “I’ll be gentle with your golems. Hello Ranesh, good to be fighting with you again.”
Ranesh scowled and replied with her customary “Fuck off.”
“You’re going to get some fresh meat too.” Si’ir Monn said. “Remember Teknor? He’s going to joins us later.”
“The little insectoid? Isn’t he a bit fragile to be fighting?”
“Just keep telling yourself that Sah Lee. He’s not great at one to one, but in a team - well, you’ll see soon enough. You’ve got us for two hours for now, but I’m fucking bored, the galaxy is too peaceful at the moment, so I’m pushing the Colonel for longer sessions.” Si’ir Monn said.
“What about Orn?” Sah Lee asked.
“The rebellion on Orn is settled. The only mission we’ve got is a small team who’ve gone to remove some outcasts from Aurass, a resort planet. They left last night with Saff Tar Wen Bel, one of the People. Other than that, the only action is exercises, or training with you.”
“Where is Ren Deel, I thought he might join the training?”
“Sergeant Ren Deel, he’s been promoted, is on Aurass. Lucky bastard.”
“Shut up and fight.” Ranesh said. Sah Lee thought she was making progress, that was the nicest thing Ranesh had ever said to her.
Chapter Sixty Six
Remorseless Training
The training carried on remorselessly. Sah Lee found that fighting two opponents was more than twice as difficult with the tactics she had been using. Each time she tried to attack Si’ir Monn, Ranesh attacked her. If she was defending against Ranesh, Si’ir Monn attacked her from behind. She ended the session hot, bruised and without having won a single fight. Si’ir Monn told her to keep trying, but he wanted her to work out what to do. Ranesh said nothing, as usual.
Tor Semmenad was the security guard on duty, she brought Sah Lee a flask of water while she had a short break before her next opponents arrived.
“What am I doing wrong? I’ll never be able to tackle two opponents.” she said to her AI.
“Not as long as you try to tackle them one at a time.”
“It would take two of me to attack them simultaneously. Have you got any other suggestions?”
“This is what I advise you to do while you are tackling pairs of opponents. You will quickly disable or distract one, then make a more measured attack on the other. You will either disable or distract the second opponent for long enough to attack the first again. You will always look for an opportunity to disable, but a series of increasingly longer distractions will build an opportunity to mount a disabling attack on first one, then the other opponent.”
“When you say distract them, do you mean pointing at the door and saying, ‘look who’s just walked in.’?”
“Take this seriously Sah Lee, or have you forgotten what happened on Aarn?”
Sah Lee was shocked by the words. The truth was, she had put it to the back of her mind. She was treating this like a game but the whole reason she was here was to get her to the point where she could get revenge on the type of people, if not the actual people, who had destroyed her life, her world, and killed so many of her family and friends, all for no real reason. She felt the tightening of her throat, and the cold fury began to burn inside her again.
“I think I did. Thanks for the reminder. Can you help me select the best target?”
“Yes. There will be no time to talk. If I can identify a weakness, you can exploit I will make their image pulse and highlight any particularly vulnerable points.”
Kar Fen, the Krendor, and Bynor, the Rinquit came in. Their golems activated and walked toward Sah Lee.
“Today we’ll practice attacks on you, starting slowly and building speed as you progress.” Kar Fen said.
“No, I want you both to attack me as if I were an enemy from the start. I have my own plan.” Sah Lee replied.
“But you may get hurt.” Bynor said.
“It will make me learn all the more quickly.” she answered.
The two reptiles looked at each other, then stepped back and closed their eyes as their AI’s fed the input from the golem’s eyes directly into their optic nerves. As soon as they had full control of their golems, they moved into their attack positions. Spotting an opportunity before they were completely ready, Sah Lee dived between the Krendor golems legs and leapt on its back. Scrambling up she swung her right arm round, and with her claws fully extended, jabbed her finger in its eye as hard as she could. The golem reacted as a Krendor would in the circumstances and jerked its head back, overriding the instructions from Kar Fen. Sah Lee bent her legs then, using her high ground advantage leapt down on the Rinquit golem, catching it round the neck and throwing it to the floor, twisting its head round until a crack came from its neck and it slumped limply in her arms. She jumped up and spun round to see the Krendor golem staggering with one hand clamped to its eye and the other arm flailing in the air in front of it, mouth open in what would have been a roar of pain, if it had a voice. She ran behind it and kicked it hard in the back of first its left knee, then its right knee and it dropped down.
Sah Lee stepped back and looked at Kar Fen. “That’s all I’ve got. I can’t do anything else without a weapon against a Krendor.
Kar Fen blinked his eyes open, tilted his head back and did the short barking roars which were his laughs. His golem stood still and dropped its arms to its sides. Bynor’s golem got up from the floor and stood still.
“Well done Sah Lee, you caught us out there.” Kar Fen said.
Bynor pulled his thin reptilian lips back in what passed for a grin in his species. “I have learnt a lesson today too Sah Lee.” His golem leapt at her, its tail whipping round to knock her feet from under her. She jumped as the tail swept under her feet and felt the Krendor golem grasp her by the shoulder and lift her off the ground. She hung in the air, not bothering to struggle. She knew from experience that she could not reach any vulnerable points on the Krendor and its scaly skin was too tough for her claws, sharp though they were, to do any more than inflict light scratching.
“We won that round.” Bynor grinned. “Now let’s get some distance between us and start a proper attack.”
The rest of the session continued with Sah Lee losing every encounter, but she started to recognize patterns in their attacks, depending on their positions relative to her. If the Rinquit golem was closer to her than the Krendor, it would usually make the first move unless the Krendor was behind her, in which case it would move from side to side and lash its tail to distract her. If she turned to see where the Krendor golem was, the Rinquit would attack her, followed by the Krendor. If the Krendor was in front of her and the Rinquit behind, the Krendor would feint a head on attack and as soon as she made a move to evade it, the Rinquit would attack her. There were many patterns like this, all with subtle variations. She realized that if she could recognize the pattern before the attack started she could disrupt them and counterattack one at a time.
While back in her cell for lunch, thinking over the morning sessions, she realized that there were patterns to the attacks from Si’ir Monn and Ranesh too. Although this insight wouldn’t help in a real-world fight, she wou
ldn’t be able to study an opponent’s pattern of attacks and work out a way to counter them, she knew that if she started to win a few times, it would give her the confidence and experience of fighting two assailants to be able to tackle unfamiliar ones.
Sah Lee wasn’t the only one learning. Her AI was getting better at recognizing opportunities to attack, spotting weaknesses in her opponent’s defenses and drawing her attention to them with pulsing highlights. Between them, Sah Lee went from winning no attacks and losing every defense to winning most attacks and defenses by taking out first one of her opponents and then the second.
Chapter Sixty Seven
Return of a Friend
As new volunteers arrived for the training sessions, Sah Lee and her AI became proficient at recognizing how an attack was going to play out, even from unfamiliar species she had not met before and Sah Lee was winning far more fights than she was losing.
One morning, on entering the training room, the security officer Sek greeted her with the news that she had a visitor in the weapons familiarization room. Sah Lee entered expecting to see Colonel B’Erren Tek but instead found Touren sitting on the desk. Sah Lee bounded over to the desk and flung her arms round Touren, almost knocking her off the desk. “Where have you been? I thought you had abandoned me! Have you come to train with me?”
“Steady on Sah Lee, you’re crushing me!”
Sah Lee dropped her arms and stood back. “I’m sorry Touren, I was pleased to see you.”
Touren stood and hugged Sah Lee. “And I’m pleased to see you Sah Lee. I’ve missed you. It’s been nearly half a year since we last saw each other, and you’ve changed so much! You’re not the skinny little mammal we rescued from Aarn, you’ve put on masses of muscle. You must weigh twice as much now!”
“Where have you been, and what are you doing here now?”
Touren released Sah Lee and stepped back. “Bekkreshan and I have been on a diplomatic protection mission. The army was asked by the Beshan and the Forkash to act as independent security for their territorial negotiations over a star cluster they both lay claim to. I am so glad to be out of there. The Beshan are arachnoids, which always give me the creeps and the Forkash are some kind of outlier amphibious species with tentacles and they move around on a film of slime.” She shuddered. “Both sides thought the other was going to attack them and eat them, and I think that if we hadn’t been there, it would have been a bloodbath followed by feasting. I know my species is unusual in preferring to eat real meat when we can, but there seems to be something deeply wrong about one intelligent species eating another intelligent species. Anyway, we’ve done our stint there and have been rotated out.”
“Are you going to train with me?”
“You are way out of my league now Sah Lee. I heard about your punishment and went to make a plea for you to be released, but you seem to be thriving on it.”
“It hasn’t been bad. Colonel B’Erren gave me this punishment as an alternative to getting a dishonorable discharge for, you know, what happened on Orn.”
“I am really sorry for that Sah Lee. But you put me in a position where I had no choice but to report the incident.”
Sah Lee smiled. “I know Touren. I am sorry I put you in that position. I have learnt a lesson from it, even though it nearly cost me my future as a soldier. But that is in the past now. The Colonel has made it as easy as she could, and it suits me. I’m getting lots of training, lots of exercise and at the end of it I’ll be ready to do what I came here for - to kill outcasts. And, I’ve made lots of friends.”
“How did that happen? When I left, everyone despised you as the unwanted rookie, now everyone talks about you as though you were some kind of hero. You can tell me later. I went straight to Colonel B’Erren Tek to plead your case, and she asked me to do a couple of things. She asked me to give you this.” she turned and picked up a shoulder harness with a knife and sheath attached and handed them to Sah Lee.
“My knife!”
“Not your knife, this is a practice replica, so you don’t damage the golems. Yours is made of steel, so if you used it in practice or in a real fight with an opponent in body armor you’d probably break it. Why don’t you keep it safe and I’ll get you a replica to fight with made from materials that will always stay sharp and won’t tarnish or break?”
“You can do that? Thank you Touren. You said the Colonel asked you to do a couple of things, what was the other thing?”
“Oh yes. She said you can have a night out with friends tonight. She made me promise to keep you out of trouble. I thought we could have a quiet drink somewhere. Bekkreshan should be able to join us, is there anyone else you’d like to invite?”
“Oh yes! Kar Fen, the Krendor and Bynor, Ferssera, Seltet, Por Aruf, Ranesh… “
“Ranesh? You want to invite her?”
“Yes, she’s a friend. Sort of. I’m as much of a friend of hers as anyone. Which isn’t saying much, but she’ll probably come. And Si’ir Monn of course.”
“You’ve made a weird collection of friends. There can’t be many people who would invite Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak for a quiet drink, or a Krendor. What are the other others?”
“Seltet is a mammal, I don’t know what species, Por Aruf is an avian, I don’t know what species she is either. Bynor is a Rinquit and Ferssera is a Harssanass.”
“A Harssanass! You have a friend who is a Harssanass? Nobody likes Harnassass’!”
“I know what you mean. He ripped half my face off the first time I met him, and I broke his elbow so badly he had to have another one grown, but we got on OK after that.”
“You have a novel way of making friends. I feel like I got off lightly.”
Sah Lee grinned. “I seem to remember I tried to attack you when we first met. I’ll message everyone and see if they can make it. I’m so excited, I haven’t been out since, last time.”
“There is a logic to that. Do you mean since the Krendor prevented us from getting killed?”
“That’s it! Anyway, you started that.”
“Only by being there. Those three creeps started it.”
Sah Lee smiled. “We’re just having a quiet evening though. I’d better get back to my training. There will be new trainers waiting for me. See you later!”
Chapter Sixty Eight
A Quiet Night Out
Sah Lee got to the bar early. She didn’t know about drinking in bars, so she sat at an empty table in the corner just inside the door, waiting for her friends to arrive. She looked round to see who else was in there and smiled.
A few minutes later Touren came in. “I’m surprised you wanted to come here again.” she said.
“You said it was a nice quiet bar, I thought it would be just right.”
Bynor came in, looked round and joined them, followed by Seltet and Por Aruf. Sah Lee made introductions. “I’ve spotted some old friends, I’m just going to say hello to them.”
Touren looked round and saw who Sah Lee was looking at. “No, Sah Lee! We’ll go somewhere else.”
“It would be rude not to. Stay here, I won’t be long, and call a medical team for three casualties.”
Sah Lee quickly walked to the far end of the bar to where three reptiles were standing, passing a smoking bowl to each other and inhaling deeply from it.
“Hello boys. Remember me?” she said with a smile. “No hard feelings, and just to prove it, I’ll let you buy me a drink.”
“You’re the skinny little mammal that came with the hot reptile, aren’t you?” one of them asked.
“Yes, you remembered.” she said, still smiling.
“That bloody Krendor isn’t here to save you tonight. Fuck off while you can still walk.”
“Oh, OK, if you’re frightened of me.”
“Frightened of you?” He reached out to grab her throat with his right claw. She slapped his arm out of the way with her left hand and gave him a hard shove in the chest with the heel of her right hand. He fell back knocking over one of his compa
nions, the other dropped the smoking bowl they were sharing, and the contents spilt on the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done that mammal!” the leader hissed as he regained his balance. The other two stood up behind him and bared their teeth, Sah Lee grinned.
“Time to play.” she said.
The leading reptile bent his legs and brought his arms up in an attack stance. He stepped forward and swept his right arm round at her face, claws extended in a feint attack, bringing his left hand up towards her eyes. She stepped back and to her right, to avoid his right hand and grasped his left wrist, yanking him towards her and downwards, pulling him off balance and on to the floor. Still holding his wrist, she continued her move to the right and spun round, keeping a firm hold of him until there was a muffled crack from his shoulder and his arm and went loose. He let out a hissing shriek as she let go, leaned her upper body back and kicked out, hitting the closest of the two remaining reptiles on his hip, pushing him backwards. She completed her turn, and took a defensive stance, facing the remaining reptile. He leapt at her, pulling his right arm back, ready to strike her. Sah Lee ducked forwards and under his oncoming arm, hitting him in the middle of his abdomen with her shoulder. Pushing upwards with her shoulder, she lifted him off his feet, got her hands on his hips and pushed him up and backwards, releasing him and stepping forwards, letting him drop head first behind her. The reptile she had kicked had now regained his balance and lashed out at her with his foot, swinging round and leaning back to hit her in the head. She grasped his foot as it swung towards her and using her body weight leaned back to pull him off his feet. She swung him round and upwards, releasing him to fly backwards across the bar room, hitting the edge of a table with his back. She felt a painful blow on her back, just below her rib cage from the second of the reptiles who had now scrambled back onto his feet. Swinging round, she brought her left elbow up and caught him in his jaw, snapping his head round. She continued her movement round and as the reptile brought his head back, Sah Lee hit him hard with her fist on the side of his jaw again and he fell to the ground.
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