by GARY DARBY
Dazed, Dason stumbled forward. A small gust of wind blew the thinning smoke into tiny entrails that wafted in the air. His shaky and weak legs carried him toward the scorched earth in jerky steps.
His mind went numb, unbelieving. One moment the three had stood together, the next, their lives snuffed out in an instant by the withering barrage of scarlet lasers.
A strained voice screamed, “Dason, look out!”
By pure reflex, Dason dropped and rolled, the man’s knife slicing the air just above his head. He came up just as Bianca blindsided their assailant, and both thudded to the ground.
The man whirled Bianca around and smashed a rock-hard fist into her jaw. She dropped lifeless to the ground. The man raised his knife in a death blow.
Like floodwaters held long back by a weakened dam, Dason’s anger burst wide open and enraged, he sprinted forward and launched himself through the air to slam into the killer.
Dason hit the ground on one shoulder, rolled and came up with his knife outstretched. The man came to his feet and smiled at Dason with a wolf’s grin.
He tossed his long blade from hand to hand. His harsh laugh grated on Dason. “Boys shouldn’t interfere with men’s work.”
Dason’s heart pounded, and his breathing came in hard gulps. The way this man stood on the balls of his feet, the way he cradled his curved, gleaming knife in his fingers, the utmost confidence in his expression, and the absolute lack of fear in his eyes told Dason that standing before him was a master killer.
Dason had no doubt how this would end.
He glanced down at the unconscious Bianca. He could run, of course, but that would leave Bianca at the mercy of this human beast.
For the briefest moment, a cold thought ran through his mind. Had his father faced almost certain death, and had he chosen to run instead of standing his ground; standing with his team to the very end?
Dason shook his head. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t run. That’s not who or what he was.
The two wary combatants circled. Compared to Dason’s steps, the man was light on his feet, and his movements had a dancelike quality to them. The wolfish grin never faded, nor did his cold, emotionless eyes leave Dason.
For a second, the man jerked and he lost his concentration. Dason’s eyes widened in understanding. The man had an earpiece and was listening to something so urgent that it took him away from the fight at hand.
Dason seized the opportunity and instead of attacking with his knife, leaped forward and caught the man full under his chin with a scissor kick. The man’s head rocked back from the shock of Dason’s assault, and he staggered away. Coming to his senses, he turned with a snarl and lunged at Dason in a lightning strike.
Dason parried the blow, but the man’s weight sent him falling backward. Dason went limp, to let the impetus send his attacker flying forward.
A searing pain caused him to suck in a breath and grimace. His assailant’s razor-sharp blade had sliced through soft tissue.
Ignoring the fire burning in his side, Dason twisted and slammed another brutal blow from his booted heel to the man’s head. The goon reeled from the hit, but then whirled, and whipped one leg around to catch Dason at the knees and send him crashing to the ground.
The man dove at Dason with his knife hand held high, but Dason twisted away at the last second and the blade ripped into the soft dirt. Dason punched his curved hand down on the back of the man’s neck in a High Ka-Ta blow and scrambled to his feet.
The man rolled over and over several times before coming up in a low crouch. His once cold expression had now turned to fiery anger.
Wiping dark blood from torn lips, he sneered, “I was going to kill you hard and fast, but now, it’s going to be slow and painful.”
He brought his knife up in a savage undercut that Dason only just managed to parry with his own knife. As blade rang on blade, the killer slammed a fist into Dason’s side.
Dason staggered back from the blow and the pain. The man brought his hand up to gaze at his bloody knuckles. He smiled. “Hurt, huh? Well, it’s going to hurt worse.”
He leaped at Dason, pirouetted in midair, slamming his boot into Dason’s knife hand. Dason’s blade went spinning and landed next to Bianca. The killer backhanded Dason, and he staggered under the blow.
The killer bore Dason to the ground. Dason wrapped his hands around the attacker’s wrists to stop him from sliding his knife into Dason’s eye. The man’s incredible strength was too much.
Dason had to do something now, or his life ended.
In desperation, Dason threw a hand outward, grabbed a large rock and slammed it into his opponent’s temple. The man let out a moan and rolled away.
Both stumbled to their feet with the killer between Dason and his knife. The man’s breath came hard and fast.
His eyes stared past Dason, and once again he had the look of listening. His eyes snapped back to Dason, and his lips curled over bared teeth. He flipped the knife so that he gripped the blade, brought it back to hurl straight at Dason’s chest.
Just then, a disruptor blast caught a tree limb overhead, sending the thick limb crashing down upon the killer. He crawled out from under the branches, holding his knife arm, but without his knife.
He stabbed a finger at Dason. “This is over for now, but it will never be over between us, that I promise you.” The killer turned and darted into the brush.
Dason dropped to one knee, his hand clutching his side. His moist clothing told him that he was bleeding. He took a deep breath and pulled himself up. He had to find his team, had to know what happened to them.
He groped through the undergrowth, and with every step came stabbing pain. He pushed away bushes, peered into every darkened shadow. He stumbled toward a smoking circle next to a craggy rock.
Tiny twigs and grass still burned in the scorched earth. The rock was blackened and fused where several disruptor bolts must have met at the same instant.
The smoldering and blistered ground told the story. Nothing could have survived the fearsome blast.
He collapsed to his knees. He put out one quivering hand and raised his eyes skyward. “No . . .” he moaned over and over.
For what seemed like hours, he knelt on the still hot and blackened earth. Lightheaded and woozy he stood, unsure of what to do or where to go. Then he remembered the rendezvous site. At least one of the team should return.
In a lurching walk, he weaved through the darkness until he saw the tree that marked the meeting point. He put one hand on the coarse bark and clutched it so hard that dead wood came away in his hand.
Turning, he put his back to the tree and slid to the ground. He laid his head back and closed his eyes.
He had lost his team.
They had trusted him, depended on him that he would make the right decisions, and now they were gone. For a long time, he remained still, his body drained of energy, of emotion, of any feeling.
He glanced upward at the night sky. A few stars twinkled through the wavy, nebulous canopy. The sight of one bright star in particular caught his eye.
It wasn’t Veni of course, but for some reason, it brought the memory of Veni back. “Is this what happened to you, dad?” Dason whispered to himself. “Did you have to make a choice, one that cost you your team?”
Sucking in a deep breath, he murmured, “Did you even know what happened to them?” Choking on his sob, he groaned, “For your sake, I hope you never knew because this is too much . . .”
Sudden footsteps crunching in the grass caused him to raise his head in hopeful anticipation, but when Bianca stepped from the darkness, he slumped back against the tree.
Taking a step toward him, her eyes grew wide. She whipped out a stunner, and he found himself staring into its black maw.
“Go ahead, shoot,” he croaked, “I saved you, and lost them. It’s what I deserve.”
It was the last thing he remembered.
Chapter Forty-Two
Star Date 2433.060
Un
named Planet, Helix Nebula
Floating in bright stars that kept exploding in flashes of intense white light, Dason tried to make the flickering stop because each time one burst, it sent a sharp wave of agony through his head.
A thought somehow squirmed itself in his mind between the fierce pain. What had Stinelli said, something about hurting and being alive?
Somewhere from far off, he heard, “Dason, wake up. Wake up.”
Someone was holding him, and he tried to push them away. “Easy, Dason, easy,” a voice murmured.
He opened his eyes to find Stinelli working on his injured side while Bianca cradled him. “Uh!” Dason hissed as a sharp stinging sensation spread across his midsection.
“Sorry,” Stinelli replied, “the antibiotic has a bit of a sting to it, but the InstaHeal and SimSkin should take away most of the pain.”
With quick hands, Stinelli applied the last of the SimSkin. “There, that should do it. I’m sure you know this, but you caught a knife to the side. Luckily, your torso vest took most of the blade’s thrust so it didn’t go too deep.
“Let the SimSkin harden and set. But if you move around too much, you’ll split the pseudo-flesh and reopen the wound.”
Dason took a deep breath and felt the pain lessening. “Can I sit up?” Dason asked.
“Sure,” Stinelli replied.
Bianca helped him to a sitting position. He turned to her, saying, “First you shoot me, and then you stitch me up.”
He stared at her with hard eyes. “I recall you saying that you shot to kill.”
She laughed slightly while tilting her head sideways, her features grave and earnest. “Shoot the guy who’s saved my life twice? I don’t think so.”
A tiny smile lifted up one corner of her mouth. “Besides, if I had wanted you dead, why waste a stunner charge?”
She pointed behind him while saying, “Just as easy to let that thing do the job instead.”
Dason twisted his body, only to stop and stare at a several-meters-long centipede-like creature that lay twitching in the grass. Its thick, segmented body held numerous skinny legs ending in a carapace-enclosed head. Needle-like spines projected out of the head’s fleshy sheath.
The thing’s twitching gave way to a spasmodic jerk that caused the needles to shoot out several hand lengths long. At the end of each were small, cruel barbed hooks.
“Night stalker,” Bianca remarked. “Ambushes its prey, sinks those hooks in and pulls the victim to its mouth to feed on. It was right behind you when I fired.
“Sorry, didn’t have time to do much else. Good thing my L-gun was on the lowest setting and you only caught the fringe or you’d still be sleeping.”
Dason put his back to the tree trunk. “Thanks, I guess,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome, but I still owe you one,” Bianca answered.
Dason raised his eyes to see Brant striding up. “The area’s secure,” he stated to Bianca. “Whoever they were, they’ve bugged out. Everyone’s accounted for.”
He gestured toward Dason. “Except for Dason, no injuries to speak of.”
Dason couldn’t help himself. His voice was a staccato blast of anger and hurt. “No injuries to speak of! Everyone’s accounted for? What are you talking about!?
“Not everyone! Not Shanon, or TJ, or Sami.”
Bianca turned to him with a puzzled expression. “Dason, are you still light-headed from the stun charge? And what was that comment about saving me and losing them?”
Dason took a deep breath and wiped his hand across his sweaty forehead. He shrugged in resignation before saying, “We were trying to escape. We might have made it too, but when the firing started, for some reason, Shanon wanted us to turn back and help you.
“So we flanked whoever was using disruptor fire and Shanon, Sami, and TJ tried to use their stunners to pick off a few.”
He worked his mouth, unable to speak, before he mumbled, “Disruptors caught them in the open, I saw them . . .” He stopped, unable to continue.
Bianca stared at him, her mouth dropping open just a little before she remarked softly, “I’m not sure what you saw then, but you might want to turn around and see what’s behind you now.”
Dason jerked his head around. Walking slowly and helped by an outlaw were Shanon, TJ, and Sami. Dason scrambled to his feet with Stinelli crying out, “Hey, easy, easy! The SimSkin!”
Dason didn’t care if he tore his wound wide open, it would match the grin that split his face. He rushed to his friends and wrapped his arms around them.
They stood under the shining moon, their heads together, not saying a word.
Helping Shanon, Dason led them back to the tree, where they sat on the ground. TJ held her head with two hands while saying, “I’m really getting tired of being stunned. It hurts.”
“Well, if it makes any difference,” Sami quipped, “I’ve always thought you were quite the stunner.”
“Not even funny,” TJ replied.
“Stunned?” Dason questioned. “I don’t understand. I saw you get hit with blaster fire. There was an explosion, and I thought you were dead.”
Shanon hooked a thumb toward Sami. “His idea. TJ and I had one shot left. Sami had two. So, we decided that after we all fired one shot, Sami would put his weapon on overload.
“That’s the explosion you saw. We knew they would slam us after we fired, but the stunner explosion would dazzle their eyes long enough that we could zip out of there without being seen.”
She pointed toward Tam. “Worked too until we ran into her.”
Tam bit on her lip before saying, “Sorry, saw movement in the brush, guess I was a little trigger happy. If it’s any consolation, I did have my weapon on the minimum setting.”
Shanon gave a small smile in response. “Being stunned is better than the alternative.”
Dason slapped Sami’s knee. “Great job, Sami.”
Acknowledging Dason’s thanks, Sami added his own. “And a great big thanks to you for the warning. Didn’t see those two yahoos behind me, if you hadn’t yelled, well, they had me dead to rights, literally, dead to rights.”
Glancing around at the outlaws, he muttered. “Not sure what good it did us though, we’re right back where we started.”
Sami stared hard at Bianca. “We’re still playing patty-cake with a bunch of Gadion Faction thugs.”
Bianca returned Sami’s stare with an amused expression. “You think we’re Gadion Faction?”
“Who else would—” Sami started when Shanon reached out to stop him. “Sami, they’re not Faction.”
“Huh?” Sami replied. “But Nase said—”
“I know,” Shanon answered. “That’s what we thought at the time given what we knew then. But they’re not Faction or outlaws, or even poachers for that matter.”
Turning to Dason, she said, “Think about it. Put it all together.”
She leaned toward him, her lips next to his ear, murmuring, “Along with this.” She whispered for a few moments before Dason jerked his head back, his eyes wide.
He searched her beautiful apple-green eyes. Like a meteor exploding overhead, the realization came to him what she meant. Why she had been so reluctant to try and escape, so sure about going back to help.
He turned to Bianca. “You’re Star Scouts.”
“Star Scouts!” Sami exploded. “What? Did that ape's poison fry your brain or something? Do you know what you're saying?”
“The absolute truth, Sami,” Bianca replied firmly.
She swept the four with her eyes. “I am Star Scout Captain Bianca Ruz. I’m posted to Star Scout Training Command and I’m your chief examiner.
“Your team has been on your no-notice exam from the time you entered the training area on Alistar.”
“Pretty elaborate setup for a no-notice,” TJ commented in a skeptical tone.
“You have no idea how elaborate, TJ,” Bianca replied. “And something we’ve never tried before.”
She laughed. “Other th
an staying in character, the hardest part was remembering our lines that we memorized or being extemporaneous speakers.”
Bianca chuckled. “Some of us will obviously never be great thespians.”
Her face turned serious. “General Rosberg requested that we come up with a training scenario that would simulate not just being tested on OutLand tactics but going up against bad guys, too.
“You were, you might say, our test pilot to see how it would work and to shake out the bugs.”
“Well,” Sami grumped, “I’m no bug but you certainly shook me up.”
Bianca smiled before saying, “We went to Scoutmaster Tarracas and proposed this scenario as a final exam for one of his novice teams. You see, we respect Scoutmaster Tarracas highly. In fact, he was—”
“Your Scoutmaster,” Dason finished for her.
Bianca’s eyes widened at Dason’s remark. “How did you know that?”
“When you were semiconscious on Stygar Six,” Dason answered, “you mumbled, ‘Return with honor, stripling warrior.’ I suspected that only someone trained by him would know the stripling warrior story.”
He shrugged. “I thought you were a cross-over and it was pure coincidence that we both had the same Scoutmaster.”
“Well,” Bianca replied, her voice tinged with surprise, “I’ll make it a point to keep my mouth shut the next time I’m woozy.”
“Wait,” Sami stuttered. “What about the ape, the poison?”
“A beautifully constructed SimLife,” Shanon stated. “There never was any poison.”
His mouth agape at Shanon’s response, Stinneli spoke haltingly, “Hold on, how did you know about that?”
“Umm,” Shanon began, “Dason and I had our suspicions about a number of things, me much more than him. But some things about the ape just didn’t fit.”
“Are you telling me,” Sami responded, “that that thing wasn’t real? There wasn’t any poison?”
“Exactly,” Shanon replied. “They just made us think there was.”