Somehow, the reality of that alone was enough to wake her out of her trance.
22
The Rebellion
Fighting broke out all around her, the instant she snapped back in her mind.
The sound flipped on––loud, disorienting, as she tried to make sense of what happened, what she’d just done, what to do now.
It was only a few seconds.
It might not have even been that, but time seemed to stretch as she stood there. She stared around the giant amphitheater as chaos broke out everywhere.
Screams rent the air, human and Nirreth.
Gunfire erupted, echoing in the high space.
Human arms fired next to pulre, the small, stone-shaped guns that let out explosions that could punch two-meter-wide holes in walls at close range.
Sandblasters shot at close-range targets while Nirreth handguns and Nirreth-designed rifles aimed at targets from further distances.
One of those rifles Jet recognized and had fired at home; it worked similarly to a lot of human semi-automatic and automatic arms, so her uncle trained her and Biggs to use them. Uncle Draven theorized that particular gun might even have been modeled off one of theirs, so it could fire in more rapid bursts at longer distances.
Most of the weapons she saw held by humans looked human-made, however.
Humans crouched and stood in stone alcoves, wielding assault and sniper rifles, even some shotguns and handguns. Jet saw a lot of skag-looking humans among those uniformed soldiers, fighting side by side with Nirreth who also fired at Isreti’s guard.
How the hell had they gotten here?
Trazen yanked on her neck again, snapping her out of her fugue.
Get back! he thought at her, once again shouting inside her mind. Get back, Jet! They have guns. A sword won’t help you here…
Jet followed the pull of his hand without knowing what he meant at first.
Everyone had guns. She knew that.
Everyone around them seemed to be firing at someone.
What good would it do for either of them to try and run now?
No one seemed to be paying any attention to them anyway.
From what Jet could tell, a good chunk of the stadium had erupted into one big gun fight, with civilian Nirreth and humans screaming and hiding among the bleachers, trying not to get hit by the edges of a stray pulre charge or a sandblaster.
Trazen’s mind nudged hers and Jet’s eyes shifted back to the arena floor.
For the first time since gunfire erupted, her focus shifted away from the skirmishes happening in the stands above and to either side, back to the guards who’d been standing around Isreti when she killed him.
Jet! Move… now! Get back!
She followed the tug of Trazen’s fingers without taking her eyes off the row of guards.
Her mind had clicked on for real, the tactical part of it anyway.
She could see murder in those eyes, the hard coil of tails, some with stingers already partway extended.
These were the zealots.
These were the Nirreth who fought for Isreti not because they feared him… but because they’d loved him.
They were his true believers.
Run for the ramp, Jet! Go! Trazen shouted in her mind. You have to leave!
Pulling her around behind him with both hands, Trazen shoved her precisely in the direction of the ramp, the same one that led down to the prep areas for the Rings.
It was the strangest sensation, feeling the worry and affection in his hands, even as he practically threw her away from him, with a carefulness she could tangibly feel. His arm and hands felt like spring-loaded steel, shocking enough to steal her breath.
He used his tail to shove at her again when she hesitated.
Join the others! Go! Go, Jet! Now!
“Get her alive!” the guard in front said in heavily-accented Nargili.
His dark eyes never left Jet, the hatred seething in his nearly black irises.
“She must stand trial. She must stand the trial of Retribution. Her blood will decorate the holy altars. We will rip apart her family for real. Kill everyone she ever knew…”
He looked at Trazen with equal hatred. “…Including this blood-traitor scum and whoever has helped him.”
Jet’s mind spun, fighting with his words.
Her heart lifted as she replayed what he’d said, disbelief twisting his words as she struggled with what they really meant. Part of her tried to make them mean what she wanted them to mean.
Another part of her refused to go there, didn’t even want to let herself hope.
Kill them for real?
Did that mean what it sounded like? Was her family not dead?
She continued to fight with the Nirreth guard’s words, replaying them over and over in her head. She tried to remember every aspect of what happened inside the arena. She hadn’t looked at the bodies outside of virtual. She hadn’t seen their faces.
Had they killed two other humans? Dressed up two innocents in virtual to look like her mother and Biggs?
Her heart rose more, a violent stab of hope in her chest.
Guilt lived there too, the idea that someone else had died for her.
But that hope burned brighter.
The guard was walking towards her now with long, heavy strides, his tail darting and coiling behind him, that hatred growing hotter in his eyes. As he got closer to where Jet stood, panting, looking between him and the ramp, he half-hunched over, until he looked like he might be readying for a leap.
Jet watched as he pulled a black baton off his belt.
Reaching back, she unsheathed her sword.
Two of the other Nirreth pulled their own wands, using sharp flicks of their wrists to extend them to twice their length. Blue and white current at the ends created wave-like beams of light, hissing as they spat sparks.
She’d seen those before, too.
They used them on her on Astet.
They used them on everyone in the slave pens, to punish, or whenever there was a fight, or a group of humans went crazy or wouldn’t be silent. One shock from a baton like that, and Jet would be out for a few hours.
Trazen appeared between her and the guards. He didn’t face her, but the guard, his tail lashing behind him as he lowered into his own crouch.
“Run, Jet!” he growled.
Before she could make up her mind to do as he said, Trazen leapt, tackling the first of the guards and snarling, slamming the arm holding the baton down on the arena floor with an audible crack. Jet watched in shock as Trazen bit into the male’s neck, tearing out a hunk of flesh with his teeth right before he stung the male in the throat and leapt off him.
Staring down in shock, momentarily paralyzed, she watched him wrench a gun out of the guard’s side holster and fire on another of those guards before they could reach him with their batons. He hit one in the side of the body. He hit the next in the face.
Only then did Jet realize the weapon was a pulre.
The second guard fell like a stone, half his body missing in a misting spray of blood.
The third he hit more or less lost his whole face and head.
Trazen leapt for that body too, taking another weapon and aiming it upwards while the rest of the guards scattered.
Several of them used the stone pillars as shields from the second pulre now in Trazen’s possession. Trazen fired that one while the first weapon recharged, aiming the blast at a guard who moved slower than the rest, killing him instantly.
Trazen crouched over the last of Isreti’s guards he’d killed, growling.
When someone fired at him with an automatic weapon, he moved again, attacking another guard who approached him from nearer to the Rings arena. Trazen shot at another one with his first pulre when the guards behind the pillars tried to take advantage of his distraction to hit him from behind.
Jet just stood there, paralyzed.
She’d never seen Trazen fight before.
She saw the s
trategy behind how he moved, the sheer grace of it––even the beauty in his savagery. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t question. He’d already taken down four of them, with a fifth visibly injured from catching part of Trazen’s third pulre blast.
More would come.
Trazen was right. She needed to get out of there.
But Trazen needed to get out of there, too.
She wasn’t leaving without him.
“Go, Jet!” he snarled, not sparing her a look. “I will find you!”
But she’d made up her mind.
She wasn’t doing what he said. She didn’t belong to him anymore––at least not the way she had before she’d entered that arena.
Even as she thought it, she darted forward, grabbing a pulre off the floor, one of the ones that had been fired, and shoved it into the pocket of her sense-suit.
It would need at least another minute to recharge, but would come in handy later.
Glancing up at that white stone table, it hit her that the Rings Judges were no longer on the padded bench, or anywhere within visual range. They’d disappeared entirely, along with the guards who stood by the stadium wall behind them.
They must have taken the judges out that way, Jet thought.
Maybe through a hidden door, or maybe down the same ramp where the most intense gun-play was happening now.
If it was the latter, she didn’t like their chances much.
She felt movement to her right and turned, brandishing Black.
Feeling as much as seeing a body rushing towards her, she swung the sword before she’d identified the shape, stepping back as she swiveled her hips. The arc of the blade managed to force him to stop, and Jet found herself facing off with a female Nirreth who’d apparently intended to tackle her from the side.
Seeing the pulre as the Nirreth ripped it out of a thigh holster, Jet darted forward without thought. She closed the distance between them, twisting sideways to avoid the female’s aim even as she brought the sword down, hard, on the other’s wrist.
She severed the Nirreth’s hand in one clean cut.
The hand and the pulre fell to the arena floor.
The Nirreth whose hand it had been screamed, a blood-curdling, high-pitched sound Jet had only ever heard in Rings, never in real life.
Another pulre blast went off to her left, and Jet turned, still gripping the sword, panting when she saw that Trazen had shot another guard who’d been heading for her.
“Jet! Behind you!” he shouted.
She heard frustration in Trazen’s voice, but he’d found another gun, one of the bigger hand-helds that time, and he was already firing on another of the guards.
Jet turned to find the one she’d shot trying to pick up the pulre with her good hand, to untangle it from the fingers of the hand that Jet had already cut off.
Stepping forward, Jet didn’t wait, but kicked the Nirreth hard in the face, causing her to grunt as her jaw jerked sideways and back. Jet swung the sword up in a neat arc, beheading the female Nirreth the way she’d done with Isreti.
That time, she only stared at the beheaded body, watching it twitch, for a bare second.
Crouching down, she snatched up the unfired pulre, gripping it in her hand even as she used the female Nirreth’s clothes to wipe off her sword before she slammed it back into the scabbard. When she turned, she saw Trazen behind one of the pillars, still firing at Nirreth guards. She shot at one of them from where she stood, then realized that was a mistake when they turned their focus on her.
Realizing she’d just used up her new pulre, that the other probably wasn’t charged yet, she cursed.
She was out in the open.
“Jet!” Trazen snarled. “Get out of here! I don’t need your help!”
Realizing he was probably right, that she wouldn’t help him by getting herself killed, Jet turned, sprinting for the transparent wall of the arena even as one of the guards aimed a sandblaster at her retreating back.
Luckily those things had crappy range.
They also didn’t have the most precise of targeting functions.
Really, they were only good for point-blank shots, kind of like an old-style blunderbuss.
Even so, Jet didn’t intend to push her luck.
She ducked and weaved when it went off, feeling her adrenaline and heart rate spike. She ran lower to the ground, shifting direction when she saw an arm signaling her nearer to the stadium wall. Whoever it was stood next to the second ramp leading below the stadium, the one that Bukka had emerged from earlier.
“Jet! Come here!” Alice shouted. “Crazy mammal!”
Seeing Alice’s face, hearing her voice, Jet sprinted to her trainer without thought, running all-out towards the smaller woman.
She reached her in seconds, out of breath and gasping. Slamming her back against the wall, she winced as the sword dug into her spine.
She stood there, recovering, as Alice fired down the ramp from behind cover.
Looking around at where they were, Jet realized the stadium overhang provided a fair bit of protection from above, at least until they drew fire from the arena floor.
Jet remained where she was, watching as Alice discharged her human-made rifle, not wanting to distract her as the woman shot down the ramp into the dark. Looking past Alice’s armored vest, Jet saw a handful of Nirreth on the other side of the opening, moving closer.
She tensed, about to yell at Alice to look out… then realized the Nirreth wore Laksri’s colors. In the same breath, she saw four humans coming up behind them, obviously in the same small fighting unit.
She stood there, watching in bewilderment as human and Nirreth joined Alice in firing down the ramp.
Jet saw the Nirreth in front make a hand-signal to two of the others.
Those two turned around at once, and ran back towards the stone table. When Jet followed them with her eyes, she saw them covering Trazen, firing from behind the short, decorative wall that ringed the lower level of the arena floor.
After squeezing off another volley of shots, Alice drew back and hit a button on the side of her rifle, causing the empty magazine to slide out a few inches on the bottom. Yanking it out, she slammed a full magazine in to take its place, producing it from a pouch she wore lengthwise across her chest. Jet noticed only then that Alice still wore the shimmering black gown she’d had on for the official ceremony, only now she had a flak jacket over it.
Before Alice returned to the firefight, she looked Jet over.
“You all right?” she said.
“You got another one of those?” Jet shouted above the sound of gunfire.
Alice gave her a sly smile, quirking an eyebrow. “You’d probably just shoot off your own foot anyway,” she said.
Before Jet could retort back, Alice turned, firing down the ramp.
After a few more minutes, the firing began to die down.
Jet heard one of the Nirreth on the other side of the glass wall, also a female, let out a growling hiss in Nargili.
“All clear!” she said.
Other voices echoed her words.
“Clear!” a human seconded in English.
“Clear!” said Alice, lowering her rifle. She turned immediately, looking at Jet, her eyes serious. “You ready? We’re getting you out of here.”
Jet bit her lip, fighting frustration.
Everyone wanted to save her, to remove her from the fight, even when that clearly shouldn’t be the priority.
“What about Trazen?” she said, unable to help herself.
Alice’s expression turned amused. “You worried about Trazen? You see him fight, mammal? I would be more worried about his opponents.”
Jet didn’t return the smile. “You don’t have a gun for me?”
“We need to get you out alive, Jet,” Alice said, her smile fading as her voice turned borderline impatient. “You still not understand, mammal? You killed Isreti. They will be looking for you. Richter, Laksri, Trazen… they all think you are still our best hope
at uniting the Nirreth and humans. Inside and outside the Green Zone. My orders are to bring you back alive.”
Jet felt her jaw harden. “Richter thinks that? Seriously?”
“He’s not the only one, Jet. Look around you!”
At Jet’s angry look, Alice exhaled. Instead of waiting for Jet’s answer, Alice turned, motioning for one of the other soldiers to bring something to her, using sign language that looked military. Jet even vaguely recognized a few signs from her Uncle Draven and Aunt Lara.
“Jet,” Alice said. “Don’t fight me on this. You are too important to lose in a small fight. This time, okay? Today. And your family is waiting for you.”
“My family?” Jet felt that hope spike in her chest, even as a human ran up to her, holding out a long flak jacket.
Realizing it was for her, Jet held out her arms, letting him slide it up onto her shoulders without looking away from Alice’s face.
“Then my family really is okay?”
“Yes,” Alice said. “We just got confirmation. They are waiting for you.”
“My brother? My mom?”
Alice nodded, pursing her lips. “Yes. Your uncle and aunt, too.”
Jet fought with the anger that wanted to rise, realizing it was relief more than anger, confusion about what had just happened, an inability to process all of her emotions right then… along with shock, what was probably a delayed reaction to everything that just happened.
“Go, Jet,” Alice said, her voice a growl. “Let us do this part. Go take care of your family. I won’t let anyone kill your pet Nirreth.”
That time, Jet only nodded.
The same human male who brought her the flak jacket was now winding a dark blue cloth expertly around her head while she stood there.
By the time he finished, the cloth covered Jet’s hair and most of her lower face, so that only her eyes showed above where the material covered her nose and neck. The sense-suit had mostly disappeared under the flak jacket, leaving only her sense-boots visible below, and the lower part of the leggings.
From a distance, no one would recognize them as being from the Rings.
Alice looked her over, raising her gun back to her shoulder.
It occurred to Jet only then that Alice was in charge.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 88