by Drew Briney
“Your grace,” she began, deliberately shifting into a very formal dialogue and leaving Blaze silently guessing what cultural details he was missing now. “The woman told us that your people left her on our planet by accident, that the natives mounted a surprise attack on some of your people and that she was knocked unconscious. She told us that she guessed that she may have been left for dead or that she was mistakenly left behind. That hardly sounds like exile.” Again, Evelia was banking on the truthfulness of her statement to engender a positive energy flow around her body, an energy flow that would testify as to the truthfulness of her statement. She hoped that the stress that she was feeling would not be interpreted as anything less than unpleasant surprise. And while she was aware that some of that stress was coming from her intention to mislead, she hoped that this detail would not be revealed to the man looming in front of her.
Her gamble worked. The captain was still unwilling to negatively assess her words until he knew her species better or until she demonstrated an inability – or lack of desire – to be truthful. So far, the energy around her person indicated that she was being honest and that she had no malevolent intent and this was enough to satisfy the intimidating alien who now bore a soft scowl and a facial expression that clearly betrayed frustration and disappointment.
“I see,” he countered. “Exiles lose all credibility with our species. It is doubtful that her parents will believe the message that she has sent. Nevertheless, out of honor for your request, I will personally deliver the device to her parents for their review. I hope, as you say, that the message will be received and treated with great wisdom so that no further evil comes upon her family. If you remain willing, I will now share with you the information you need to prepare your species to progress the way that your home planet wills them to progress.”
Waiting only very briefly for any response, the alien captain walked towards Evelia with a grace that Blaze would not have believed any man could achieve. As the captain cupped his hands and reached towards Evelia’s face, Blaze felt conflicting feelings of overwhelming peace tainted by instinctive jealousy. Intellectually, he could have brushed aside the latter feelings. Emotions however are not guided by logic so he struggled to suppress those feelings nonetheless – as Evelia relaxed her head into his hands and exhibited such a calm, peaceful, and serene look that Blaze felt uncomfortable seeing such an expression on her face – and in response to another man’s touch.
The process took only moments to complete – a much shorter time span than either Blaze or Evelia could have expected – and with a perfunctory few words of departure, the alien captain wished them well and dismissed them with his head slightly bowed and with a small wave of the hand. Blaze felt a little like a child being dismissed by a noble who had no time for the trivial affairs of those bearing a lower rank. Evelia felt greatly honored. She understood the gesture for what it really was and felt very anxious to explain its significance to Blaze on the return trip back to the ship.
ROUGHLY LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, the young warrior pressed down a hallway as if he was impatient to brief his chief officers about his meeting with the alien captain, saying very little as he did so. Holding his staff in his right hand, he gripped his hand around the controls tightly, once again familiarizing himself with their every detail. He didn’t expect to need his staff but in times like this, it served as a comfort to him. Perhaps it represented his inner self: an undefeated warrior, the protectorate of his people. Perhaps it simply represented his authority over others. Perhaps it was nothing more than something to hold onto as he spoke to his crew.
Truth be known, Blaze was sort of dreading the visit with his chief officers – after all, he played such a negligible role in the encounter that he wondered whether or not he would lose credibility if they knew what really happened. Nonetheless, something within him drove him to quicken his pace; something told him to make great haste. He couldn’t name a specific feeling. He couldn’t explain his impatience but he recognized the movement of his intuition and he knew it was to be trusted. Show the meaning of haste, he commanded himself, poorly remembering a line from a story with no name, a story largely lost from the databases, a story that used a slightly older form of English than he had known growing up in the Order.
Blaze’s shadow, no longer holding a child, followed singly behind her captain and wondered what intuition was guiding him. It scared her when he acted impulsively like this. And even though she had every reason to trust his judgment when it came to following his gut instinct, so far, each time he had followed that instinct, it had resulted in bloodshed. After leaving a meeting that left her feeling more peaceful than she had ever felt in her lifetime, the prospect of bloodshed raised its visage as a severely unwelcome visitor. Silently, she hoped things would be different this time. That was, until she saw black billows of energy pouring out from around the hallway to her left – a hallway that went nearly the opposite direction as the main deck where they were heading. Startled, she began to tell Blaze to turn when, on his own, he dodged to the left and darted ahead so fast that Evelia struggled to keep up with him.
As they turned another corridor, Blaze, who was unable to see any clouds of energy, slowed his pace, somewhat uncertain where to go next. To Evelia, the answer was obvious. The billows of black energy were so dense and dark that they nearly obstructed her vision. But she could tell that they were emanating from a door not too far ahead and off to the left. “Blaze,” she called, “it’s over there.” As he turned to look at his companion, he saw that she was pointing to a doorway that led to the biology/genetics portion of the ship.
“That is precisely what I was afraid of,” Blaze answered. Then, looking at the door, he commanded it to open. But nothing happened.
“Door, this is the captain. Open now,” he commanded.
Again, nothing happened.
Bewildered and impatient, Blaze made use of a rarely used function on his staff by moving his fingers over the panel in the shape of an inverted triangle intersecting with a long line that protruded far outside of the triangle. The spear-like tip of the staff buzzed relatively softly and glowed as if made of molten metal. Motioning for Evelia to stay behind and shoving that glowing portion of the staff through the locking mechanism and diagonally towards the floor to sever the magnetic mechanisms that bound the door shut, Blaze kicked the door open with his feet and stormed into the room.
Surprised but calm, the beastly Toka held his gaze upon the bloody mess underneath him as he took a slow and deliberately deep breath. If there was any part of Aria’s body that was not bloodstained and matted with gore, it was not immediately evident. And while Blaze struggled to identify the corpse, his instinct served him well: he began engaging various functions of his staff while intense hawk-like eyes looked up and smiled. Blood still dripping out of the sides of his mouth, Toka spit out a chunk of flesh and crossed his arms in front of his body as if making the letter “x”.
BLAZE STOOD PREPARED TO ENGAGE his opponent but hesitated a brief moment before attacking. Although it was grotesquely clear that a crime had been committed and although it was also clear that this alien (as Blaze viewed him) was unauthorized to be aboard his ship, Blaze's leadership training instructed him to apprehend the subject until a trial could be held. His deeper instinct, which had already served him well in finding the crime, instructed him to decimate the beast and worry about political fallout later. In conjunction with the strong visual cue – the bloody mess crumbled on the floor – Blaze should have acted quickly and decisively.
But he didn't.
And his pause was just long enough for Toka to gain the advantage. The beastly Toka was more than aware of every function on Blaze's staff so the instant he lifted his eyes to behold his captain, he abandoned his plan to throw poisoned quills at whomever it was that dared to interrupt his most recent amusements. Instead, he used genetically enhanced muscles to another significant advantage. Springing himself onto the wall with a speed that seemed surr
eal to the young warrior, Toka redirected his path towards Blaze, fully expecting to receive a clobbering blow coupled with electric shocks that would momentarily disable him from fighting.
His anticipation was fulfilled … and his plan worked.
A very short moment following his daring attack, Toka found himself lying on the ground, dizzy and dazed from the strong electric pulse that came from Blaze's heavy staff blow, his entire midsection bludgeoned, bruised, and broken. But his gamble paid off. With one quill protruding from Blaze's neck and two quill scratches stretching across his cheek - and already festering – it seemed that Blaze would be debilitated and groggy for much longer than Toka. Too wobbly to properly hold himself up on all fours, Toka nonetheless managed to mount a very satisfied grin across his face. He reached to pull the staff out of Blaze's hand but stumbled and fell flat on his own face as his numb appendages disallowed him any significant mobility. Half frustrated and half humored by his failure, Toka glanced over at Blaze's eyes, trying to assess whether or not Blaze's genetic enhancements were effectively minimizing the effects of Toka's poison. So far, so good. It appeared he had time to spare - Blaze's eyes stared blankly towards the ceiling and his eyelids laid motionless, only half shut. His body was clearly in shock and it didn’t appear that he would be recovering any time soon.
A few more grueling moments passed while Toka made a rare effort to exercise the virtue some men referred to as patience. But as the moments passed and as the various levels of tingling sensations began to depart from his body, Toka eventually recognized that his body would respond well if he tried once more to move. Looking to his side, he observed that Blaze remained motionless and unable to defend himself, eyes still motionless and glazed. The only movements coming from his body were sporadic convulsions and seizure-like spasms - the poison had taken well despite Blaze's immunity enhancements. Toka chuckled with inhumane gruffness that only a true beast could produce. In pure ecstasy, he clumsily but capably grabbed Blaze's staff, stood up, raised the weapon over his head, aimed the spear like tip directly at Blaze's chest, arched his back to increase the power of his blow, and paused only briefly before making the plunge to end the captain's life.
EVELIA STAYED WHERE SHE WAS - just like Blaze instructed - excepting that she sat upon the ground so she could concentrate on what was going on. The black billows of energy were almost debilitating. Not only did they obstruct her vision, they made it difficult to concentrate on anything at all. They overloaded her senses.
But even with that handicap, one thing was evident: there had been near silence in the adjoining room. Something initially kept Blaze from attacking but then, shortly after entering the lab, a burst of noise indicated confrontation. After that ... silence prevailed a second time. Something was wrong – terribly wrong – and Blaze was not responding to her efforts to telepathically speak with him. In a flash of momentary fear, she broke her agreement with Blaze and tried to listen to his thoughts - but these were blank as well. The resulting empty feeling was unknown and disconcerting. She had zero instruction or experience by proxy to tell her why Blaze's mind would be so dark, so silent, so vacant. Deduction suggested he was dead. Speculation suggested he was dead. Even intuition hauntingly suggested he was dead. But ignoring all that, she stood up, bolted around the corner, and mentally prepared for the worst.
That was when she saw the beast, its hulky, spikey arms raised, its back arched, its sardonic grin held steady, and its hands held high, holding Blaze's staff and preparing to strike. He was oblivious to her presence and it wouldn't have mattered anyway – he dwarfed her in size, eclipsed her in strength, and transcended her in intelligence as a mountain transcends a clod of dirt settled at the foot of a flower. Had he seen her, Toka would have viewed Evelia as nothingness itself, an inconsequential pawn ready to play the victim of his entertainment.
Evelia, in her moment of silent desperation, reached deep within the wells of understanding that she had gained from the magic woman to find something that might be of some use to her, something that might deliver her in this dark hour of need.
And she found it.
Instantly torn by her lack of real life experience, Evelia nonetheless plunged herself in mental desperation and channeled the energy around her into a fierce psionic attack. The black billows of smoke filtered through her body and mind and magnified her efforts to inflict fierce and ferocious mental pain upon her mysterious enemy.
And it worked.
Toka was still suffering those nasty tingly feelings that come after significant electrocution. His grip on the staff was therefore already more reliant upon his fierce determination than his physical ability to handle it well so when Evelia mounted a psionic attack upon him, his grip entirely failed. The staff fell to the ground as the beastly Toka shrieked, fumbled to retain his upright posture, and stumbled slightly backward.
Meanwhile, his beastly howl of pain snapped Blaze out of his dazed state of mind, his body still slightly trembling, his mental alertness resolutely reviving. Before Toka finished an echoing shriek of pain, Blaze had reached into his boot to recover one of his blades and flung it towards Toka’s vulnerable, hawk-like eyes. But he missed his mark. Two factors worked against the young warrior. First, his body was not responding well to his efforts to engage in combat so the thrown blade was doomed from the beginning. But more importantly, Blaze’s staff lay at the feet of Toka, its functionality to deflect all projectiles now working against the young warrior, protecting the very beast it was meant to defend him against. As Blaze struggled to mount the strength to stand up, he realized that his balance remained significantly compromised. His limbs were too wobbly and compromised to crawl, stand, or walk so he had to improvise his next few moves.
By this time, Evelia was finding her control over the mind of the beast tenuous and difficult to maintain. Not well trained in psionic attacks, Evelia was unaware that her ability to attack someone of greater intelligence would be severely compromised. Only her dogged determination, Toka’s exposure to electrocution, and his own complete lack of experience allowed her any success at all. Thus, as the moments quickly passed by, Toka was slowly regaining his ability to control his own mind and to soften the effects of Evelia’s psionic blasts. As he did so, he became aware of Blaze’s movements.
While Blaze clumsily curled his body to roll towards the staff, Toka focused great mental resolution to press and lock his fingers tightly together, driving them down upon the young warrior, barely missing his ribs and pushing his spiked fingertips deep into Blaze’s left thigh. Normally, Blaze handled pain quite well but this time was an exception. Not only did the poison from the quills magnify Blaze’s physical sensory perceptions, Toka’s spiked fingertips were covered with small little barbs that hooked into his flesh and tore out generous portions of muscle and tissue when Toka curled his fingers to tear out his thigh. The young warrior briefly howled from the overwhelming pain.
In his physical extremity and in the heat of the moment, Blaze’s instinct for self preservation heavily outweighed any previous concerns he had for protocols and diplomacy. Resolutely gripping his staff and freeing it from his own entangled body, Blaze engaged the functionality that shot energy bolts with two quick swipes of its panel and began releasing those miniature bombs the very same moment that his staff made its nearly deafening energy snapping sounds. Sparking around is tips and glowing with a bluish hue, the staff showered more energy bullets than necessary to end Toka’s life and continued to make more subdued sounds as the beastly man crumbled to the ground.
Oblivious to Evelia’s presence, Blaze turned off the functionality and glanced over towards the corpse that he had seen earlier, only to find Aria raised up on all fours, eyeing him with disbelieving eyes much like she had on the day he had accidentally slain Jerron. This time however, she appeared less glamorous than she had that fateful day of the tournament. Although haphazardly wiped clean with her own tattered clothing, Aria’s face was nonetheless framed by large smears of blood. A
nd although recognizable, it seemed rather gaunt and pale – only a feint echo of her normal, healthy features remained. After seizing upon Blaze’s eyes for a few disbelieving, yet victorious moments, Aria shifted her gaze back towards the corpse of her former master and then upon the figure of the woman behind him. With some blood still in her eyes, Aria wiped them again before she was able to focus and distinguish Evelia who stood not too far behind Blaze. Recognition reflected in her eyes.
As Blaze perceived Aria’s eyes focusing on someone besides himself and Toka, he turned his head to meet whatever new opponent might be sneaking upon him, concerned that his body was still not responding well to his efforts to move it and that he still felt sapped of energy – he was in no condition for prolonged combat. When he saw Evelia, his fear subsided and he felt greatly relieved. At the same time, the look on her face was both disconcerting and frightening – horror filled her eyes. Blaze could hear her speaking to him in his mind but he couldn’t understand the words. He recognized them as the words of the magic woman and he recognized from their tones that Evelia was experiencing great mental trauma. Somehow, despite all of the confusion and the foreign language, Blaze understood that Evelia had psionically attacked Toka and he saw a strong visual image of Toka (sent from Evelia) standing above Blaze, ready to deal a final death blow, a blow that Blaze would never have blocked on his own.
That moment and the few that followed marked a new beginning for all three survivors.
Every day of Aria’s life, for as long as she could remember, she had lived in fear. As a child, she feared the pain of her diseases, the pains of her handicap. As these were healed under the brilliant care of Toka, she had grown to love and appreciate his efforts – but then, he became the very object of her daily fears. Aria had never suffered a beating like she received earlier this day but the specter of such a beating had long haunted her. Only recently had any ray of hope enlightened her mind – a hope to escape her prison – a hope that seemed foolhardy to her every moment she allowed it into her mind. She gambled everything to give Blaze a virus to produce new enhancements rather than administer the virus that would have ultimately ended his ability to make his own decisions – and she had paid dearly for her disobedience. But now, now things were very different. Now, perhaps she had more reason to hope than she ever let herself truly believe.