Star Chaser- The Traveler

by Reiter

  “It would seem that you recognize me,” Dungias whispered and the man nodded frantically. “Then you should know that I would prefer to keep my return to the megacity a private matter.” Dungias slowly lowered his hand from the man’s mouth.

  “Z’Gunok Tel Dungias!” the man whispered and it was the first time he had heard his name mentioned in such a fashion. The man was proud… overwhelmed with emotion as tears welled up in his gray and green eyes. “I stand here before the one… the One!”

  “The one what?”

  “The One who set the standard, my Vu-Prin,” the man replied, grabbing Dungias’ arm. “Don’t you know what you’ve done?!”

  “I can honestly say that I do not know of what you speak,” Dungias replied. “But perhaps there is a place where we can sit and discuss it.”

  “Out of the way, spawn!” a voice called out in the distance. Dungias knew his eager new acquaintance could not hear it, but the young Traveler could and he looked up to the transit platform to see a group of men in Houseline uniforms pushing their way through the crowd. They surrounded a young, orange-haired female who was obviously of station. As they made their way down the steps, they continued to push others out of their way.

  “No,” Dungias whispered, seeing an elderly man making his way up the stairs, carrying what had to have been his body weight in a stuffed canvas bag. “Excuse me, friend,” Dungias said stepping out of the alley and out on to the sidewalk. He pressed his lips together, knowing what he was about to engage in was going to be seen in some measure, and his hopes of a ‘private matter’ would be undone. He sighed, lifting the hood of his cloak and drawing Alpha just as the lead man of the procession met with the elderly Malgovi. There was no hesitation! He barked his warning and swung his arm across the elderly man’s chest, knocking him out of the path and over the banister of the stairway. Antigravity caught the old one and his parcel, setting them gently down on the ground.

  “Out of the way, you!” the large man boomed as he struck a woman across the face. He set to swing again as the child who was with the woman was petrified. His gloved hand descended, and his wrist hammered against the extended black, slender rod.

  “Easy there,” Dungias said as he took a gentle hold of the young girl and ushered the little one toward her struck guardian. “Get the young one clear of this,” he directed before holding up his left hand to block the blow meant for the side of his face.

  “I hear you, Teacher Guyn,” Dungias thought as he turned, pushing the lead man. “But there also comes a time when the truth must be revealed! Forgive me, Master Exemplar, if I offend you. I know this is not why you trained me.”

  “I suppose it means nothing to you that you have decided to exit via an entryway,” Dungias said, using Alpha to draw attention to a posted schedule. “People are trying to begin their work-shifts and provide for their families. Why do I doubt your mistress has such pressing matters to which she must attend?”

  “He’s shay-spawn,” one of the procession verified after a brief scan.

  “You dare to touch me?!” the lead man said as he returned to his feet, drawing a fighting baton.

  “I sought to defend a child,” Dungias replied. “Please do not force me to defend myself. The walkway is clear and your mistress has been made to wait a moment. Surely you have greater things to postulate.”

  “Who are you?” the orange-haired female spoke, moving one of her security team aside. Her eyes were a deep auburn color and she was quite comely… but there was something else to her glare. It was not all that much different from her lead man’s. She felt put upon to be made to wait, but there was a hint of curiosity, a speck of wonder. Dungias considered it to be the effect of her surprise, as she seemed to be the sort who was used to getting her way, and he smiled as a particular notion occurred to him.

  “I am but a simple Traveler, milady,” he answered her, pulling back his hood. “But you can call me Dungias.” The young female took a step back, gasping and putting her hand to her chest; repetition from empowered and shay-spawn Malgovi alike forced the name to echo.

  “The one from the games?” questioned one of the procession guards.

  “Our champion!” cried one voice and Dungias turned to see that his friend from the alley had caught up with him. “The true champion of the Iro-Games has returned!” The outcry started a chanting of the name ‘Dun-gi-as’. The Traveler returned his eyes to the lady of station and her accompanying guard.

  “He looks bigger than the one in the playbacks,” whispered one of the guards.

  “It has been two orbi-terms,” Dungias offered. “One has a tendency to grow when approaching adulthood.

  “Does her ladyship care to proceed?” Dungias asked, gesturing a way for the procession to continue.

  “You are the one… aren’t you?” the female asked.

  “I once attended the Iro-Games, yes,” Dungias stated.

  “Attended?!” the man from the alley scoffed as he took in an air to speak more.

  “You!” Dungias said, pointing at the man with Alpha without taking his eyes off of the lead man. “Forgive me for addressing you as such, but what is your name?”

  “Thuranos,” he replied.

  “Thank you, Thuranos. It is a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to our discussion. Please forgive whatever inconvenience our meeting has imposed upon you. That was not my intention. Now be quiet!

  “Milady?” Dungias said, still looking at the lead man. He could feel the anxiety again, and he started mapping his options.

  “You are to come with us,” she directed. “Whether it is under your own power or not is up to you.”

  “Perhaps after my discussion with my new friend, Thuranos,” Dungias offered.

  “You have made me wait once this star-term,” the young woman replied. “I will not be made to wait again.” Thuranos did not like the tone of the conversation and started ushering people away from the stairway. Dungias nodded as his eyes squinted. He twirled Alpha and placed one end on the step at his feet.

  “You will not know people by what they say, as the tongue is a most flexible muscle,” Dungias said, quoting Alphexeous. It was not something he had learned directly from The Campus, but from the lesson gained when he absorbed the memories of the Mal-Vin who had attacked the grounds. “But actions are a language that seldom requires translation. I called Thuranos a friend… his actions substantiate that claim.”

  “A lot of words to say nothing, fool!” the lead man said as he tightened his grip on his baton. A slight glow appeared in his eyes. “Now, what is your answer to her ladyship’s summons?”

  “Forgive me, I forgot to take measure of the gravity of the moment,” Dungias said before pounding Alpha down on the steps. The antigravity burst threw the young woman, each of her guards, and Dungias high into the air. By the time gravity resumed its planet-wide pull, their bodies were still ascending.

  “And I do not need solid ground to push off,” Dungias thought as he lunged forward, hammering the side of the lead man’s face with a spinning back-fist. The blow landed doubly hard, as a gravity field on the other side of the man’s face kept him from moving from the blow. It also provided Dungias a jump-off point to streak to the next man, where the heel of his boot made a home in the man’s sternum. With that man’s back unable to give, the wind was knocked out of him. Dungias set himself for another strike.

  “Look at him,” Thuranos said, his voice caught in the wonder of the display. “Just look at him!”

  There were ten in the security detail for the Lady Forlen Niora Vriena. Her family had chosen them from their security personnel. At first she had hated the detail, but with the rising violence from the shay-spawn, there really was no other option, save never to go out. To encounter the very Malgovi her Vu-Zai had claimed was the source of the troubles her House had been forced to endure… she had thought it was a gift from the Stars. She screamed when the ground no longer held her to its surface, flying up faster than most vehicles
she had ever seen. When her body stopped its ascent, half of her detail had been stunned. Only one of her guards even managed to fire a shot before he too was struck.

  “Vu-Zai!” Vriena screamed as her body started its way back to the ground.

  “No,” Dungias replied, wrapping an arm around her waist. “And I am not sure how to take the comparison.” Vriena screamed again and did not stop until after Dungias landed safely with her body in his grasp. He dropped her in the mud as he leveled Alpha at the group of falling bodies. They landed in the grass to the side of the stairway. Dungias twirled Alpha and extended his hand toward the young woman. He caught the bolt of electricity she directed and allowed Alpha to feed until he became angry at her inability to see her attack was not harming him. Taking hold of her charge, he drew his hand to his chest and it pulled the woman from the ground. He caught her with an arm bar across the chest. She fell to the ground unconscious. People cheered and started toward the downed guards.

  “HOLD!” Dungias screamed, shaking every single form that stood within earshot of him. Some tried to stop in mid-stride and stumbled into one another.

  “That was… unexpected,” he thought, not knowing he had that power in his voice. “I will have to monitor that in the future.

  “And what will you do with them?” he asked. “They cannot defend themselves. Will you beat them senseless? Will you kill them and force those in power to send armoured troops, or even the Mal-Vin?! Where will your victory be once they have destroyed your homes or killed your loved ones?!”

  “But you fought them,” one of the crowd shouted back.

  “I defended myself,” Dungias advised. “This fight is over. There is a difference between protecting your own life and passing unnecessary judgment on others simply because they are different from you, or because they have wronged you in the same fashion.

  “Now go, my people,” Dungias directed. “Move along and allow me to deal with the aftermath. Go while you may still claim innocence in this matter.”

  “The constables will come,” the old man warned. “They will come and claim you.”

  “And perhaps it is time that I was claimed,” Dungias replied. “Go, I say.

  “That means you too,” Dungias said to Thuranos.

  “And what of our discussion?”

  Dungias held out Alpha and Thuranos took hold of it. He slowly pulled it back and smiled. “We just had it,” Dungias said, holstering Alpha and removing his weapons belt. “If you would do me a favor…”

  “Anything!” Thuranos said and Dungias looked into the eyes of the man. He quickly looked away and pondered if this path was the one he should take. He did not want to be an idol, and the notion of fanaticism left a bitter taste in his mind.

  “Hold on to these for me,” Dungias said, handing the man his weapons belt and cloak.

  “I will, Dungias,” Thuranos said before running down the walkway.

  Dungias smiled until they were out of sight. He then accessed Vriena’s PC and sent out an emergency signal, directing it at the household of Duke MarrZo. He gathered the bodies together, actually having to strike one of the guards as he came up swinging and hurling photons. A sharp hook across the chin subdued the man and made it easier for Dungias to move him. When the first of the constables arrived, Dungias was seated on the steps with the muddy Vriena next to him.

  “I would warn you against firing–” a laser bolt interrupted Dungias and made Vriena scream. The constable wielding the iro-form-fed weapon gasped in marvel. “How is it that the Malgovi are considered to be an intellectual people when we fire our weapons first?”

  “Stand down, shay-spawn!” the constable ordered.

  “I am seated and unarmed,” Dungias replied. “How much more nonthreatening can I be? And I’d have a care, we are being recorded.” Dungias motioned toward one of the camera stations and the constable quickly turned to order the station deactivated. “You will already have to explain your failure to follow protocol when you fired upon me.”

  Dungias could hear it when the constable received notification the station had been deactivated. Five more constables had arrived and were ready to dispense their brand of justice. Dungias closed his eyes and prepared himself. He did not move as they slowly approached and took possession of the downed guards. He also made no reaction when they came for Vriena save a cautionary, “Mind the soft skin and jewels!” When the constables came back, he had lost his smile and held up his hands in surrender. Each man took turns beating him with their batons, and it was a bleeding heap they dragged from the steps to the prisoner carrier.

  What the constables did not know, until they were all airborne, was that the event had not only been recorded, it had been broadcasted. The Forlen House was not one of significant position or influence, but it was still a family recognized by the Duke. Using Vriena’s PC, Dungias had been able to access the Duke’s database and upload the event on the same monitor feed as the Iro-Games advertisements… and those were interplanetary. The event had played thrice before the system was shut down. Before Duke MarrZo could begin to wrap his head around what had happened, he was receiving a Royal summons!

  The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

  Winston Churchill

  “A soft bed?” Dungias thought as he stirred from unconsciousness. “Not exactly what I expected to wake up in… but it feels very nice.” Moving his jaw and extending his sense of Touch throughout his body, Dungias could find no wounds on his person, though not even the best of regenerators could get rid of the muscle stiffness often found in restored bodies. Wherever the greatest wounds were, the dull ache would remain, and it did. He moaned and allowed the sound to carry to the walls… uneven walls, made so by objects in front of the walls at a much lesser density: guards. He counted three of them before he opened his eyes.

  “You are to remain in bed until the physician has cleared you,” one of the guards notified. Looking up at the three men, he realized that whoever his captor was had obviously decided to not take many chances. Not only were the men armed and armoured, their weapons were already trained on Dungias.

  “It is a strange sort of medicine you practice here,” he commented.

  “Say whatever you like. That we cannot control!”

  “These are Mal-Vin,” Dungias suspected. The tone of the voice belied severe training and an exacting sense of discipline.

  “But if you move from the bed, we will be forced to fire.” Dungias sat up quickly. Two of the three stepped back and said, “Shield!” Defense screens shot up around them. From the hum of the machinery, Dungias guessed they were not the standard sort used to deflect light weaponry, more like the kind that could absorb a few blasts from a deck gun!

  “So that is the response,” Dungias remarked. “… impressive and decidedly heavy-handed. But I understand the need to be efficient. After all, the mark to meet here is the maintaining of the prisoner.

  “Still, the means of how this is done reveals to me that I am at the very least in the company of the Duke or someone with matching finances and influence. The shield units are costly… soldiers are not something that can be easily bought.”

  “And you must be the one in charge of this deployment,” Dungias said to the one who did not flinch.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “Well, if you are not, you very well should be!” Lifting the sheet, Dungias found himself naked and fitted with an anklet on his left leg. He could see two flashing lights on the side of the device.

  “It has been suggested that you leave that alone,” the soldier reported. “Tampering with it will only cause you severe trauma.”

  “I will keep that in mind then, thank you.” Dungias opted to lie back and relax. With nothing left for him to do, he started to meditate, turning his thoughts inward. It was not long before he attained a peaceful resting state and full awareness of his surroundings. The walls of the room were fortified with i
ro-barriers and they seemed formatted to scramble dispersion fields of any sort. That meant intangibility would not be a means of escape. Dungias coughed hard and the sound he made was absorbed into the matrix.

  Taking in the rest of the room, the young Malgovi was surprised to see that only two of the guards were Mal-Vin. The one who had not jumped was a Warrior. His mind had been well-trained to resist probes, but he was not very aware of what was happening around him beyond what his physical senses could tell him.

  “And what is this?” Dungias thought, feeling an iro-form pattern that seemed foreign to the ones that surrounded the room. It moved from wall to wall, to the floor and then the ceiling. “Some sort of probe,” Dungias estimated as the door to his room unlocked. He opened his eyes, feeling the iro-form pattern make a hasty withdrawal from the area.

  “You presence is requested,” an attendant announced. “Clothes have been provided for you. They are in the stand next to the bed. Guards, come with me.”

  “Has it become the custom that Malgovi are held prisoner in such a fashion?” Dungias inquired, curious as to the political spin that had already been prepared.

  “You have been charged with attacking a member of a standing House,” the attendant answered. “As a member of a House of higher standing, Duke MarrZo would like to speak with you before allowing due process to engage. After all, if this was a simple misunderstanding, there is no need to involve the courts.”

  “I am a member of a Kith, a lesser rank than that of a House,” Dungias stated.

  “The family name of Z’Gunok is recognized as a House,” the attendant stated before quickly turning and leaving the room.

  Dungias smiled at the answer. Some things, it seemed, had changed and now he was a member of the House Z’Gunok. It was a point of interest, but not for that moment. Not wanting to waste any time, he got out of bed and dressed rather quickly. The clothes chosen for him were not the sort he liked to wear. The loose fitting shirt and pants made of the same material were of the hand-woven sort; a luxury reserved for only the very wealthy. The shoes he had been given were simple lounging flats that wrapped around his foot and did not come up high enough to even come close to the device that had been attached to his leg. He opened the door to his room to find the attendant waiting and surprised to see Dungias at the door so quickly, but he seemed to take it all in stride. He signaled the guards to follow.