by Chris Lowry
Banger turned to his daughter.
“Listen to him, Reanna. Set a trap for this man when he returns to the village. Do not go into the woods.”
She grabbed his upper arms in her hands and squeezed. Veins popped out of her arms.
“Father, I am lord of this island. Every Corsair on this Coast knows that I say who comes and goes among our waters. How many forces have tried to take us, only to be turned away by my cunning and skill?”
She spoke with a confidence that was not arrogance, just truth.
Robe thought she sounded a lot like the Templar.
“All,” Banger’s shoulders fell in defeat.
He knew his pride would disappear in the treetops, intent on her quarry.
She would fight him for the challenge, fight him to prove herself master of this domain.
“Then have faith in me,” she double checked the bindings on the three prisoners.
“Be glad he fed you first.”
She shoved them on their sides.
“This is twine, not an energy bond. Most people have a disrupter on them somewhere. On these, it will not work.”
She kissed her father on his cheek and jumped from the door to a low hanging branch. Her laughter receded as she left the clearing.
“She may not come back,” Darwin told Banger.
The thin man sat on the floor in front of the Doctor.
“I need to hear more of this man you call Templar.”
“I don’t know much more to tell,” answered Darwin.
Banger pulled a large knife from the folds of his clothes and ground the edge against a whetstone.
“You will tell me how he dies,” the rhythmic scrapes echoed through the camp.
“If he harms my daughter, none of you will live.”
“We can kill him easy enough,” the scientist set down one of eight graphs and fiddled with the wire rim spectacles on his nose.
“Our weaponry is sufficient. We just have to hit him with enough at one time.”
Nova hated the glasses that partially hid his eyes. In this day of laser precision surgery, spectacles were an affectation, a throwback to an era long gone.
She despised affectations.
“Then why can’t we hit him?”
The scientist picked up another chart.
“Computer,” he held the plastic board up next to a hologram projection.
Nova hated charts too, and wondered briefly if this man would be missed in R & D.
“The tracking study of his movements during his capture and stay have revealed an advanced neuromechanical system. It is quite unlike anything we have seen before. If you’ll turn to page one hundred forty five of the report I handed you, I can show the statistical evidence we have compiled regarding this,” he changed graphs.
Nova didn’t bother to open the thick book in front of her.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Is he human?”
“Quite human, as much a man as I am,” he puffed up his shoulders, shoving the glasses back on his nose.
“He’s just different composition. His chemical makeup is set apart from ours, due no doubt to evolutionary advancements since the First Computer War. Our advanced bodies have discarded the weak genes that make him invulnerable to our plasma bolts. He-”
Nova tuned him out. She could listen to no more.
Obviously, the boys in Research had spent a great deal of time on the Templar, but she didn’t buy their theories. It stood to reason that he was better than any of them at battle and strength, and skill. She chalked it up to training, but it could be something more.
All she wanted to know really, was how to stop him.
“How do we stop him?”
“Simple,” the scientist dropped all his graphs and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a small vial, no bigger than her pinkie.
“He’s impervious to our weaponry, so we found this.”
“What is it?”
“It should wipe him out, not as fast as a plasma bolt, but it shouldn’t take more than a week or so for him to die.”
“You mean we don’t have a gun that can kill him?”
“Oh, no. That’s what I told you. Even our Autohulk guns would just knock him out. We can’t burn him or anything. Weren’t you listening to me?”
Nova motioned to the vial.
“Then what is that?”
“It’s the flu.”
“The flu?”
“Yes. We’re immune to it, but he’s not. This is a strain we developed for him specifically. It’ll take about a week or so, but he’ll drown in his own fluid.”
“The flu?” she repeated.
The scientist nodded and placed the vial on her desk.
“Just break it open anywhere near him,” he gathered his charts and stood in front of her.
Nova stared at the tiny capsule on her desk. It looked empty but she knew better.
The flu, a germ that had been eradicated after the Second Computer War.
She looked at the scientist.
“Can I go?” he asked.
She nodded and turned to her terminal. He closed the door behind him.
“Outcome,” she queried entering the germ into the equation.
“Termination,” it stated.
She leaned back in her chair and studied the vial.
She studied the beach from afar, crouched in the bough of a large tree overhanging a small inlet of water. It had been easy enough to follow his trail, although she still couldn’t catch his scent.
Everyone on the island had a signature smell she could recognize, the heady sour aroma of sweat and food, differentiated between individuals by their households.
But this man she followed, he left no scent, not the antiseptic scrubbed flavor of the Troops, or the dusty smell of the Doctor. Nothing.
His direction was clear enough. He followed the main path to the beach, and though she detected no visible signs of passing the leaves and branches, she saw where the dirt turned here and there.
She liked him for trying not to leave sign of his passing, and wondered if he meant to do it that way.
Nothing on the beach.
His footprints were in the sand, soft shoe she called it in her mind. He was being careful of where he stepped.
But they stopped at the beach rock.
She guessed he climbed on it and searched the woods surrounding the end, and the sand on the other side, but again turned up nothing.
Her quarry had vanished.
She climbed a tall tree to mull it over, deduce where the man could have gone.
The woods were noisy with animal sounds and the hum of insects. She listened intently, the seed of an idea planted in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing and reached out with her sense of hearing.
Behind her, muffled by her hair and the tree, the forest noise was whole, full of chirps, buzzes and flutters. To the left was another solid wall of noise, nothing there to disturb the natural order of things.
But on her right, somewhere in front of her, not far from the beach, not too deep in the woods, was a break in the noise, a silent island where the insects and birds did not go.
She concentrated on that direction, trying to scent the wind, but nothing came to her. Only the glaring omission in noise, the silence growing louder in the din of nature.
She smiled and hefted her spear.
She found him.
Reanna adjusted her position in the tree, waited for first light.
The Templar slept. Deep, bone numbing weariness had claimed him reaching past all levels of endurance and forcing him to succumb to the most basic need. He slept hard, his breath coming slow and even, hidden in the shadows of the rocks and trees.
Survival instincts bred and trained in him were aware of his surroundings though. Taught to sleep with one eye open, the Templar had attuned himself to his surroundings so well, he was aware of the slightest vibration of movement in a few meter rad
ius around him. He could categorize a bird landing on a branch, a hermit crab scuttling through the sand, a ladybug crawling across the tree trunk above his head.
But these were natural sounds, noises he could recognize and ignore. Nothing to alarm him, nothing to worry about.
She fell with swiftness, barely brushing a leaf in her passing, spear held poised to land at his throat, capturing before he could open his eyes.
She landed, but he was gone.
She leaped on top of the rock, searching for him.
The sand was turned and scattered. She could see where his right foot planted for him to lead off, but she couldn’t believe the speed.
She was faster than a snake and he moved so she couldn’t see him.
She gave a half thought to the Suit’s warning, then concentrated on the Templar.
“You trespass here,” she called, jumping into the branches and searching the empty beach.
“I will find you. This is my land.”
She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye on the far side of the rock and launched her spear.
It connected with a pistol, knocked it to the sand.
“I have you,” she screamed and bounded to the fallen gun.
He hit her from behind, tackling her face first into the ground. She gasped, her mouth was full of sand, her nose, her eyes.
She couldn’t breath.
She kicked backwards, tumbling headfirst, trying to drag him with her. He let go.
She rolled toward the water, hit the surf and vanished into a wave.
Strong strokes pulled her underwater to the end of the beach rock. She could hold her breath for minutes, until the burning urge almost overwhelmed her.
Slowly, she let herself come up under a small outcropping, and took a long deep breath.
“I am impressed,” he whispered in her ear.
She hit him with a piece of coral.
He didn’t see it coming, and took the blow above the ear. He fell in the water.
She jumped on top of him, taking another deep breath and pushed him under, holding him down.
His eyes were open and he smiled.
She snarled and pushed him deeper.
He grabbed her in a hug, pulling her close, but not squeezing tight. She tried to back away, but he held her, kicking hard.
He carried them away from land.
She watched as sand fell away into the deeper blue water of a grotto, an underwater valley. They moved swiftly, and she wondered at his ability to swim.
The need for air consumed her, a flame blazing in her lungs.
She headbutted him, trying to get loose, to get oxygen.
He held her tighter. She bit his cheek, and he grabbed her chin between his teeth, biting too, until the blood of both streamed around their faces and the sting of the salt water made them let go.
She relaxed in his arms, hoping he would buy the feint.
He carried them up, breaking the surface but refusing to let her go. Instead, she could feel his powerful legs kicking, keeping the both out of the water.
She drank in air, gulping great mouthfuls.
She never had held her breath so long.
Then again, she never ought in the water before. Corsairs knew better than to fight in water. Motion and blood attracted sharks.
As if being called, two dorsal fins popped up behind him.
“Sharks!” she yelled.
“Let me go!”
She struggled against him, tried to free herself. The sharks wouldn’t attack right away.
They were curious, probably frightened of this moving creature in the water that was bigger than they were.
If she could get free, she would sink down to them, spread herself out and try to appear larger and maybe scare them away.
The Templar swung around, and watched as the fins slipped under water.
He had never seen a shark, but had heard legends of them. Men who had made their way up the river talked of them as killing machines, monsters that would climb over the back of a boat to get a man.
He felt fear for his exposed legs, but battle pride and desire for this powerful woman grinding against him kept him from letting go.
“What do we do?” he asked, keeping their heads above water.
“Let me go! We have to sink, scare them!”
He released her.
She took a deep breath and sank under water.
He followed, imitating her when she spread her arms and legs and faced the gray monsters twice as long as a man on their level. The Templar did the same.
The sharks circled, eyeing the two intruders with caution. The larger of the two, just over four meters, swam in closer to investigate the woman.
She punched it in the snout and it backed off, running for deeper water. The second shark disappeared.
She swam for the surface, taking deep breaths again. The Templar surfaced beside her.
“We’ll finish this on land,” she growled and made for shore with powerful strokes.
He kept pace, angering her.
No one was supposed to be able to swim as well as she.
On the far side of him, a dorsal fin appeared and slipped under water. She took a quick breath and dove, hoping to beat the shark.
It came in close, the big one again.
It wasn’t afraid this time, coming closer to her, attracted by the thick blood that waved on her chin in a small ribbon.
She wiped it away, but the bite was deep and the blood flowed freely. The shark came in low, just below her feet, ready to attack.
It made a passing grab for her outstretched arm. The Templar swam in like a shot, grabbing her knife with one hand and the dorsal fin with the other.
He stabbed it, twisting and turning, rolling under the water.
The shark bit his arm, chomping, blood circling it’s snout. It shook the Templar like a doll.
Oblivious, he ripped open the white underbelly, entrails trailing in the water.
The other shark moved in to feast on it’s brother. The Templar pried the locked jaws open and surfaced.
He breathed deep, and struck for shore, following the receding woman.
On the beach, she waited.
He had her knife. She picked up a piece of driftwood, a makeshift club that extended her reach by almost two feet.
He stood up in the surf, left arm hanging limp by his side, and walked calmly to her.
“You propose we still fight?” he asked, admiring her trim muscular form.
She was tall, just coming to his shoulder and tanned a dark caramel color.
“You are an intruder,” she gasped, out of breath from the swim and the scramble for a weapon.
“I saved you from that,” he said, pointing to the water.
“You took me into that,” she countered.
“You were going to kill a sleeping man.”
“You attacked my village. You have intruded on my island and I have vowed to kill you.”
“Your people shot down my hovercar.”
She didn’t answer him for a moment. He continued.
“So I am not uninvited. I came not by choice.”
“You attacked my village,” she wavered, keeping the club but lowering the tip.
He could move fast, but she trusted her reaction to be faster.
He dropped the knife on the sand. She only had a stick and he could break that easy enough.
“I came to your village to ask for help,” he threw a glamour, the projection of a weaker man, but the strain was hard.
Blood puddled in the sand under his lacerated arm.
“We were attacked. I instructed my men to use stun until we could sort it out. Have you been to the village?”
She nodded.
“Then you saw, I killed no one.”
The glamour was working. All she could see was a weak man, standing in front of her.
Then, the glamour faded and he fell backwards, passing out.
She stared at him af
raid this was a trick. But she could see the large puddle of red at his feet.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she thought.
She raised the club and moved to him. He was unconscious, his arm wounded viscously, mangled.
She put her foot on his chest and screamed a victory cry.
Struggling, she hefted him across her shoulders, slumping under his weight.
She stumbled through the woods, carrying her prize back to the village. They would honor her as the greatest Corsair of all time for this victory.
They would have to let her lead an assault on the Coast, instead of waiting for men to return. She had proven herself worthy in her father’s eyes.
She congratulated herself over and over as she careened down the well worn path.
Nova walked down the hallway, searching for Bram. He had hidden from her for the day, choosing to immerse himself in the pre-party activities and followed her orders to the letter.
They had never fought like this before, yelling and intentionally hurting and discrediting. Disagreements before now had been tiny matters of inconvenience, the solution usually agreeing not to see eye to eye.
But where the Templar was involved, she wasn’t sure.
The Computer called for complete eradication. Bram agreed with the Computer and Nova was required by oath to follow those instructions.
But she nursed treasonous thoughts that maybe, this time, the Computer was wrong.
After all, it called for the death of Robe for defecting with the Templar, the replacement it had recommended in the first place. New data always shed light on any conclusions and she was smart enough to reevaluate herself often.
The Computer claimed infallible logic with a zero percentage of error whenever she questioned it.
Bram didn’t think it was wrong.
She could tell he was confused at its call for Robe, but he had blind faith enough to follow orders without questions. She noticed as she walked, the attention to detail.
Where she had called for extra guards, he had posted more than enough. Each with specific instructions to be aware of any event or activity involving the Mob.
This fundraiser was important to her Troops, and she could see it reflected in their eyes, in their devotion to duty. Their existence as a unit depended on this night.