by Alex Deva
He and the three SEALS soldiers were being thrown around the room like dice in a box, but only Mark knew where the next "down" would be. They fell sideways at a hard rate. The soldier who still had his weapon was trying to fire in Mark's direction, but the Brit had calculated his fall so the disarmed man would be inbetween. Bending his knees hard as he landed, he curved into a ball and braced himself. The unarmed man fell on top of him head first, his shoulder deflected by Mark and hitting the bulkhead at three g. His clavicle broke like a twig, and he screamed inside his space suit. Breathing hard, Mark waited for "South".
Kickass time.
The unconscious American fell from the wall onto the room's regular floor as gravity turned "South" again, and stopped moving. Of the other two, the one with the darkened visor fell hardest, because now he couldn't see anything. The third one, whose gun Aram was still clutching, was fighting back. The Dacian's attempts to stab him had either not worked, or not worked well enough. There was no blood anywhere. So, instead, he tried to cut the belt connecting the weapon with the American's space suit, but the SEALS soldier managed to deflect the blade. He was blinking furiously inside his helmet, and his clenched teeth were red with blood. He and the Dacian were both kneeling in front of each other.
Aram's hurt right arm was beginning to act up, so he had to bring his left in to the rescue. He stood on one foot, propped the other into the American's chest, then used both hands to yank the gun away, still holding his knife between his fingers. About a metre of the connector unravelled, enough for Aram to have a little room to manoeuvre. With a swift, practiced move, he quickly replaced his knife in its spot by his ankle, bent his forward leg and propped the peculiar gun against the front his knee, then grabbed its extremities and pulled as hard as he could.
Mark was the first to the weapon whose cord he had cut, and he still had his sharpened club in his hand. His only opponent left breathing was now trying to get up, heaving himself from the floor with some difficulty and reaching for the gun, too. The Brit pointed the strange thing towards the other's mid-section and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened. The gun did not fire.
The other was already on one knee, and immediately saw his chance. Bringing up his own gun, he aimed it at Mark but, just as he squeezed the trigger, the lights went off.
Mark instantly threw himself to the side, hearing the bloodcurdling hiss of the flechettes as they stabbed the air where he had been. He crossed the two steps that separated them, just as the SEALS' helmet lights automatically came on; and so did the wall lights, an instance later. From Room One, Doina was trying her best to give him every edge she could, without allowing the attackers to profit.
The soldier tried to change his aim, but Mark was already bringing his own weapon down on his wrist. Its blunt end hit the American's hand hard, and he all but dropped the gun. Mark brought the club down again, this time on the gun itself, and the dazed man, wincing in pain, had no choice but to let it go. Its connecting cord unravelled and was just about to reel itself back in, bringing the loose gun back to the front of the space suit, but Mark stepped on it and, with a third gesture, this time using the sharp end forward, cut it off.
And then, the SEALS gripped the front of his shirt with his good hand, and head-butted him hard in the face, with his transparent helmet.
Aram was anything but a weak man. He put all his force into it, even though his right hand wasn't as effective as he needed it to be anymore. He yanked hard, with maximum violence, gritting his teeth, and the metal-polymer weapon bent. It didn't break, but it deformed enough that he was willing to risk it. The horrified look on the soldier's face confirmed it. Triumphant, the Dacian was just about to throw himself at the other's neck, when a voice screamed:
"Hands up, you fuck! Don't move! Hands up, now, now, NOW!"
The second SEALS soldier, his helmet off, was aiming right at his chest. The hurt guy's gun, Aram realised. He slowly raised his hands and voicelessly mouthed: Adiuvare me.
What happened in the next second was incredible.
First, the lights went out. Then, a burst of five sharp flechettes departed the SEALS' gun barrel towards Aram. And then, five sickening thuds were distinctly heard as each glass blade embedded itself into soft tissue.
Mark was seeing stars. His nose was bleeding massively and his eyes were crossed. He tried to bring his hands in front of him, but they just couldn't seem to find his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been hit so hard. He almost fell to his knees. He dropped his stick, which promptly turned back into gel and disappeared.
The SEALS man quickly grabbed his gun on the floor, but found that he couldn't lift it. He looked at the strange, grey gel that enveloped his assault weapon. The stuff seemed soft, but unbreakable. Puzzled, he looked around.
His friend was lying in a heap on the other side of the room. Grey tendrils were stretched across his chest and his weapon. He turned to his opponent, who was dressed in casual, civilian clothes, and looking like he was trying hard not to fall down, blood dripping from his nose and mouth.
He risked and took off his helmet, then took a careful breath. The atmosphere seemed safe. He got up and spoke:
"Who the fuck are you?!"
Mark was trying to fill his lungs with air, but his brain wasn't working quite right. His head was beginning to clear, but in his dizziness, he thought he saw something.
He saw a nine-year-old girl with red hair and teary, hazel eyes, crying his name and reaching towards him with her small hands.
And so, he threw himself at the Special Forces soldier.
The lights returned in the next second. A grey pillar of soft gel had grown in front of Aram, all the way up to his chest, as he was standing with his hands still up. The five flechettes were lodged in the substance, frozen still.
The SEALS soldier looked at his gun, then at Aram. The Dacian lowered his hands and went around the pillar.
The other fired again.
Before his finger even applied pressure on the trigger, with unbelievable speed, grey tendrils emerged from the floor and curled around the gun barrel, drawing it away and down. The soldier tried to hold on to it, but couldn't; eventually he had to let it go. His gun harness quickly extended to its maximum length, forcing the man to bend, almost pulling him face down. In a quick reflex, he hit the release catch on his suit and the harness disconnected.
The other SEALS -- the one whose weapon Aram had bent -- turned around. Their wounded team-mate was lying on the floor, tied down with thin, grey ropes.
Both soldiers threw themselves at Aram.
The minute had elapsed and there was a brief flash of brighter light to remind Mark of what came next. He ducked under the SEALS' massive cross punch, barely missing the gloved fist that, judging by the force the American had put behind it, would've been enough to bring down a horse.
Then, he forgot how the sequence continued.
As it turned out, next up was North.
He tumbled on his back as up became down, barely having time to turn in mid-air. The other was caught by surprise, but by then he had begun to understand the rules of the game, so he curled into a ball and hoped his Special Forces space suit would do its job. He landed on his side, hands wrapped around his unprotected head and tried to roll away.
Still, Mark was quicker. He got up in an instant and aimed a precise foot at the American's ribs, just as the latter was trying to get out of range. But the SEALS grabbed his boot and twisted it. Mark would've fallen on his back if not for the next gravity change.
Hard West.
All three of them tumbled to one side in a big, indiscriminate heap. Aram was caught in the middle, the guy with no helmet under him, and the other one above. In the three-times-grav, he felt as if he'd fallen under a horse. His right arm was burning hotly between shoulder and elbow, and all air was forced out of him.
But the SEALS underneath had it worse.
With almost half a ton of force instantly pressing down on h
im, and the suit's countermeasures turned off by the absence of his helmet, he didn't have a chance. He cracked four ribs; he would've screamed in pain, if he only had some air left in his lungs. He dug deep in his training, trying to fight, but consciousness abandoned him like smoke from a dying fire.
Red drops of blood floated in front of Mark's eyes, as he fell on his side. He yanked his foot free, and the SEALS soldier had to let it go, or he'd've hit his head on the wall. Although still dizzy, Mark managed an acceptable landing under the three g. The other fell on all fours, barely keeping from smashing his face on the bulkhead.
"Fuck," he muttered, as he fought to stand up and face Mark.
This time, the Brit didn't miss. Putting all his strength into one mighty uppercut, with a right arm that weighed three times heavier, he hit the soldier under the chin, just in time for the next grav change in the sequence.
Zero.
The sudden change was odious. Their internal organs went from being smashed into each other, to floating freely inside their bodies. Aram nearly puked. He had almost no use of his right arm anymore. But the body on top of him was suddenly weightless, too. He pushed upwards with his knees and good hand, then elbowed the soldier, who was just reaching for his neck.
He pushed as hard as he could, but then had to use his left hand to fight the mounting squeeze around his neck.
They were floating in the middle of the room. Aram kicked with his legs and managed to come facing the room's ceiling, as the grav changed direction one more time.
South.
The SEALS man hit the bulkhead hard, with all his mass, but his suit softened the impact. Instinctively rather than deliberately, his head feeling like mush and with a metallic taste of blood after the powerful under-chin punch he'd just received, he turned towards Mark and tried to launch himself towards the Brit. Mark jumped sideways, just as the gravity was restored its usual direction, and watched the soldier fall hard once more.
He had a half second to prepare, and he launched a brutal lateral kick, connecting with the other's kidney in mid-flight, just before he landed.
"Fuck," the soldier grunted again, blinking and wincing in agony as he lay on the floor.
Grey tendrils quickly emerged and restrained him.
Mark leaned over him, breathing hard. Blood fell from his face onto the SEALS' space suit. He looked the American in the eyes, waited for a few seconds, and then spoke, for the first time since the fight had begun:
"Six SEALs? To deliver a radio? Really?"
The other stared at him and said nothing.
"Of course," Mark said, propping himself on one knee, breathing hard. "Fine. Name and rank, if you please."
"Porter, Daniel, Chief Petty Officer," said the SEALS man, also breathing heavily through clenched teeth.
"Well, why don't you wait here, Porter," Mark said as he got up.
Again, the Yank had no option but to let go. He was falling on his back, with Aram in his lap. He tried to free both hands to cushion his fall, but the Dacian was holding his right hand with his own left. He exhaled quickly and braced for the hard impact.
One fraction of a second before it, Aram kicked back with his head into the other's helmet; then quickly bent at the waist, trying to send all his weight into the other's abdomen.
But the soldier hadn't become a SEALS by losing fights. Exhausted as he was after Doina's constant and unpredictable gravity shifts, separated from the rest of his team save for two other teammates who were now badly hurt and tied to the bulkhead, bruised and disarmed, he still had some fight left in him. Having kept his helmet on, his suit assisted with the impact a little, and he pushed Aram off as soon as he could.
They stood facing each other, measuring each other up. The American kept a light stance, expecting another gravity shift at any moment. Aram's right arm was hanging limply, as he pulled his knife again, with his left hand. He knew that there would be no more grav shifts; this was all they had planned.
They circled each other, avoiding the useless guns on the floor, the grey pillar with flechettes in it and the SEALS man with the smashed visor. The soldier with the cracked ribs was stuck on the far side of the wall, right where he had fallen when that wall had been "down," hanging unconscious in his alien grey harness.
The American looked around for anything that might be used as a weapon, but couldn't find anything useful.
"Can you hear me in that thing?" Aram asked.
The soldier didn't blink.
"Fine," said the Dacian. "I just wanted..."
Then, in a swift underhand motion, he threw his knife.
Turning to block the other's view, Mark faced the wall, touched it and turned off the lights, then opened the ceiling iris. Then, counting steps from memory, he moved to the centre of the room, where a small tingling on his skin confirmed the low-g well was ready and waiting. He threw himself upwards.
Alone in the room above, he stepped to the wall and called Doina.
"Hey," he said.
"Oh, God," said the girl. "Are you hurt badly?"
"I'll be fine."
"I'm sorry... I didn't figure out how to tie them down quick enough."
"You did great, Doi. You saved my life. How's Aram doing?"
"He's... They're still fighting."
"What room? I'll go help."
"Eighteen," she said.
"OK, I'm on my way. How about the last soldier? The one that you left in the spoke?"
"He's still outside your room," answered the girl. "I think he's trying to talk to somebody, but no-one answers."
That stopped Mark for a second.
"So our ship is blocking radio signals?"
"I'm not doing anything on purpose," she said. "I'm not even sure what radio is, really."
Well, well. That might come in handy.
"OK, here's what we'll do," said Mark, already moving. "I'm going to eighteen to help Aram, then we're gonna have to do something about the bloke outside my door. Can you bounce him around a bit when I tell you?"
There was silence for a second.
"Yeah," she said eventually. "But I really don't like it. Can't I just glue him down like I did with the others?"
"Even better," Mark smiled.
The knife flew like lightning and hit its target with great precision, piercing the suit just next to the articulation of the right shoulder pad, where its softness allowed for freedom of movement. It carried on through the soldier's skin, cutting through muscle, and scratched the humerus. The pain, Aram knew, would come in a few seconds and would be severe.
The soldier couldn't see his shoulder very well because the helmet made for a bad angle, but he heard the suit alarms and saw the HUD light up in bright red. The suit responded by trying its best to seal itself off -- it was, after all, created for outer space -- and, detecting blood, it immediately cooled down the region and applied pressure to the wound. But the SEALS man didn't need his heads-up display to tell him what had happened. Hot, debilitating pain exploded in his right shoulder. His blood pressure spiked and his vision blurred as everything turned red. Biotelemetry sensors detected the body crisis and a flash message popped onto the visor, asking for permission to induce chemical pain relief. The message timed out after a few seconds and the suit automatically prepared and released a strong dose of analgesics into the blood of its occupant.
But before that happened, Aram attacked.
He feigned right but moved left, and in one step he was within arm's length of the other. He bent as he hit the soldier in his hurting right side, placing his left leg behind both the other's legs while holding tight to his space suit. Then, using his own inertia, he pulled him backwards. His own knife, protruding out of the other's shoulder, was right in front of his nose.
The soldier fell like a sack of spuds.
Aram quickly got up his knees and was reaching for the handle of his knife, but the other caught his hand and twisted it. Aram would normally have responded with a straight right punch, but his own ri
ght arm was in no kind of shape for that.
The pain relief cocktail reached the SEALS man's nervous system and molecularly bound itself to the opioid receptors, inhibiting their perception of pain and inducing a sudden euphoria within him. With renewed strength, he increased his grip on the Dacian's wrist, as he tried to sit up.
Aram stood up, dragging the soldier with him, then gave him a savage kick to his right side. The other winced but refused to let go, instead getting on his feet and preparing his own kick. The Dacian saw it coming and blocked it.
With badly injured right arms, their left connected, they circled each other.
The American tried to combine arm twists with leg techniques, but Aram was always ready. In turn, he tried to release his hurting wrist by yanking it every which way, always paying attention to what his opponent was doing.
He was just going for the other's knees, when he noticed the soldier's eyes grow wide as he was looking over Aram's shoulder. I see some tricks haven't changed in the past thousand years, thought the Dacian, but then he, too, saw a reflection in the other's visor. Right behind him, distorted by the helmet's spherical shape, the ceiling iris was opening.
The SEALS soldier thought he was hallucinating because of the painkillers. In front of his eyes, beyond the blond bastard who had knifed his shoulder, a round opening grew in the room's domed ceiling. A man, dressed in civilian shoes, with very old-style pants and shirt, short hair and a bloody nose, descended slowly through it. His senses and the suits sensors told him the room was at one g, but the newcomer was falling slowly, almost as in zero gravity.
The momentary distraction was enough for Aram, who threw a vicious kick into his knees. The Yank's suit was enforced around the menisci, and he was already pumped full of drugs, so he didn't really feel it. That really annoyed Aram.
The newcomer stepped easily on the floor and watched them curiously, from a few steps.
"Need a hand?" he asked calmly, with an obvious English accent.