by Rich Horton
His trained eye can still see the heightened alert in his target’s stride.
It is a look of a man preparing to whirl and kill his tail.
The target, a man named Jathyx, does what Draiken would be doing himself in a situation like this: assuming the worst, putting off aggressive defense as long as possible, recalculating the form that defense will take at the rate of once or twice with every step. Without ever doing anything as obvious as turning around to grab a look, he is constantly taking Draiken’s measure, calculating his distance, his gait, his likely threat level, whether it will be best to strike high or strike low, whether he should go for a killing blow or leave enough alive to question. All while deciding whether it will come to that, presuming more and more, as the slow-motion chase goes on, that it must.
He must sense that the confrontation can be no more than a minute off.
Draiken must take him on not far from a certain advantageous position, rapidly approaching. He can choose to do it a little early or a little late, but the chances of apprehension increase the further his remove from the optimum position.
Increasing his speed—but only by about a third; success was still best served by subtlety—he reflected not for the first time during this tail the key reason why he’s chosen to confront Jathyx in this narrow space. The man is lethal with a blade, but advance intelligence has it that his most terrifying trick has always been deftly darting past his opponents, and in that moment of crippling blindness striking the death blow from behind. Many enemies have felt that last stab of agony in the small of their backs, still wondering where the son of a bitch got off to. At this particular trick, Jathyx is unparalleled, such a genius at the move that Draiken would not stand a chance. In face-to-face confrontations, he’s merely one of the best: a key distinction that increases Draiken’s chance of surviving the next few minutes from None to Not Likely.
Draiken gains five paces and feels the increased proximity as a sudden eruption of tension, a closer kiss from the abyss.
Five more and Jathyx now clearly knows that the moment is nigh, that he will have to turn and strike, not too soon as that would surrender the advantage, not too late as that would be suicide, but at the precise moment, as clearly defined as a heartbeat: the unknown pursuer’s last heartbeat.
For Jathyx, choosing the moment will not be difficult. Really, the circumstances could not possibly be more perfect. The approaching footfalls will be telling him everything he needs to know, as surely as echolocation.
Five more paces.
More.
Draiken is now a mere ten feet behind his prey, slowing down, trying to match his stride with the target’s. It won’t confuse Jathyx by more than an arm’s length, if that, but that much can be vital when dealing with a figure whose very reach is a radius of immediate death. Draiken is at this moment unsure that it will be enough, and he is aware that if it isn’t, it might very well spell the end of his own life, without closure on the quest that has consumed his last years. He cannot allow this to trouble him. Some of his associates long dead have made the mistake of thinking that the trick is to not care. It is why they’re now dead. The trick is to care but to forbid caring from influencing him, to accept death as the almost certain outcome and then try to change it.
So if he dies he dies.
Now arrange living.
At the point when Draiken reaches the device strapped to his belt, he is so close that odds are fifty-fifty whether he might survive to press his thumb against the touch pad.
It is a near thing. Jathyx is already whirling, bringing up his weapon at the same moment.
The high-pitched shriek blaring from the micro-speakers affixed to Draiken’s chest, shoulders, and forearms is, like the footfalls that came before it, magnified by the cramped spaces. It’s agony for Draiken, who’s practiced with it and who was prepared for it, and it must be even worse for Jathyx, for whom it must come as complete shock. It would scare the average human being out of his skin, and take almost everybody out of the fight completely.
It merely throws off Jathyx’s upswing, just enough that Draiken, bringing his arm down to bat the jab aside, does not completely embarrass himself in the attempt.
He does succeed in preventing the blade tip from entering his belly—which it would have, despite the light armor he’s wearing.
He does not prevent the cutting edge from slicing open his forearm before he seizes hold of his opponent’s wrist; a grip that almost but not quite fails to prevent that jab from being redirected. He only suffers another grazing slash across his side.
He has been wounded twice in two seconds.
The sonic blare cuts off. It was only designed to last a second or so. Any more than that and what advantage of surprise it had provided would have been lost, as it handicapped both combatants equally. It would also attract Piithkarath authorities, draw them to investigate the noise, and even if they’re only likely to arrive long after the fight is decided, render it moot.
Draiken doesn’t mind creating a disturbance. He does mind it attracting trouble.
Jathyx’s expression betrays no satisfaction at having drawn both first and second blood, merely more calculation. It is a face made for calculation: flinty eyes, sharp cheekbones, a focus on killing that is not that of a bully, but that of a butcher. He knows he is still in for a fight.
Draiken provides him with one, throwing his weight into it, slamming the man’s arm against the wall, twisting just enough to render it painful, knowing even as he does that it is not enough. The blade remains in hand. It is all cutting edge, ridged to prevent wounds from closing up quickly, and heated just enough to burn, without the potential benefits of cauterizing. It is made to slip in and out, without lodging in or being much deflected by bone. It has likely killed many.
Its master will not drop it just because his wrist is slammed against a wall. Draiken can do it a hundred times. It won’t matter. It is an extension of his arm, one that defines him, and one that—for all he knows—presents his only chance of survival against this stranger he can only consider an assassin.
Besides, he can do the math as well as Draiken can. With Draiken’s blood now flowing freely down his arm and onto the other man’s, what grip Draiken has on Jathyx’s stabbing hand is now being rapidly lubricated by one of the most slippery substances extant. It won’t be long, seconds, before it interferes with Draiken’s hold. At which point, the master of the knife will be able to stab and slice with impunity.
Draiken performs a half-spin and slams his own back against the corridor’s opposite wall, using it to support him as he rams his left knee into his opponent’s thigh. Moves like that are ordinarily all about throwing the other guy off balance, but this one causes Jathyx more pain than most, because sewn into the very fabric covering Draiken’s knee is a barbed razor that is sheathed in its housing whenever Draiken’s using that leg to walk, but which is exposed and deadly when the leg is bent. It slices right through the other man’s clothing and into his flesh, drawing a wound as deep on his opponent’s thigh as the one on Draiken’s forearm.
Jathyx must be wondering now whether missing the femoral artery was deliberate. Surely this stranger didn’t go to all this trouble just to keep him alive!
He still can’t be worried much. After all—Jathyx must be thinking, as he staggers backward, pulling his slippery wrist from Draiken’s grip with a violence that slices a ragged trail across Draiken’s palm—it is not the first time he’s been cut in a fight. It hasn’t happened often, but he’s met professionals within shouting distance of his own skill more than once. They’re all dead, and he’s still alive.
They’re both staggering now, but the advantage, Jathyx must think, is all his.
Draiken advances. Deflects a slice aimed at his throat with bloody cost to his shoulder. Slices at his opponent’s right calf with another spring-loaded blade in his shoe. Lets Jathyx, reeling, try to disembowel him. Backs away from that slash and advances again, almost sacrificing his i
ntestines to miscalculating his quarry’s ability to recover. Avoids that, empathizes with the overwhelming frustration Jathyx must feel at being unable to circle, because he feels the same goddamned way, then goes for an old-fashioned punch and flattens Jathyx’s nose.
The floor where they fight is now greasy-slick with blood, and both are slowed not just by their own weakened conditions but by the necessity of not succumbing to a fatal slip. The difference is that Draiken is less handicapped by being slowed down. He’s fast, even supernaturally fast, but his speed has never been his greatest advantage in close quarters. His willingness to give up blood, in exchange for his opponent’s blood, is. That is an advantage Jathyx, who’s won most of his encounters without a wound, does not possess. The major lapse in his training is lack of familiarity with his own limitations, much less willingness to skirt them.
All he has is his skill with a blade. That helps him out only at the beginning of a fight.
Draiken’s advantages come closer to a difficult fight’s conclusion, which is one reason why he’s always put most of his efforts into getting past all the early unpleasantness.
Jathyx puts everything he has into one last assault, slashing, jabbing, forcing Draiken’s retreat, but only driving him, no longer quite managing to cut him. Draiken, who’s exhausted, allows Jathyx to exhaust himself more. He watches the profusely bleeding wound on his opponent’s leg, tracks the labored breathing that is the best Jathyx can manage after the destruction of his nose, stays outside the radius of death, and watches for the moment when he will be able to pierce that radius to its vulnerable origin, without subjecting himself to any further damage.
Against his will, Draiken smiles.
It does only take another minute.
• • •
Draiken is tempted to reward himself with rest, not in the least because the most strenuous part is yet to come, and because summoning the stamina to keep going is borrowing from the future to pay the debts of the present. He’s not in great shape. Even if he presses on and lives, he will pay for this later.
But first he tends to his own wounds. Nanomeds would take too long for his current purposes, but he does have a liquid spray that congeals as something very much like flesh, that can stop bleeding and keep him mobile as long as he obtains more extensive treatment before long. The one terrible cost is that it burns like hell: not the mere sting of disinfectant but an active amplification of all the pain receptors in the surrounding tissue. He is not falsely brave about it. He hates it.
He takes care of the wound on his forearm and the one on his palm and the one on his side and the one on his shoulder, and in no time at all he has succeeded in replacing one form of burning agony with another. Whee.
Once he is done taking care of himself, he deals with Jathyx, who he’d never harbored any ambitions of killing. This has been an exercise in subduing and capturing a wild beast, no more.
He leaves the nose alone, but addresses the cut on Jathyx’s thigh, arresting the blood loss.
Fully conscious, Jathyx continues to stare at him, saying nothing.
That is because he is paralyzed. The entire immediate goal of this encounter has always been to apply a little device about the size of a coin to the base of his neck.
The neural block renders him a temporary quadriplegic and therefore portable, if not immediately cooperative.
The entire encounter would have gone much easier had there been some means to get within the kill radius and apply the block in some more peaceful manner. Draiken has managed that trick with others less formidable than this man. He’s himself the survivor of a fight with a pair of strange individuals named Oscin and Skye Porrinyard, who managed the trick on him in less than thirty seconds, subduing him with no blood spilled by anybody. But those two had advantages he does not, advantages that had rendered them something more than conventionally human, and in his game it’s always been best to use the tools you have, not the tools you wish you have.
Jathyx needed to be slowed down quite a bit before the block was possible. So Draiken used the tools he had: the cramped quarters, the blades in his knees, and his own not-inconsiderable skill at doing damage to an opponent. He’d been surgical about it, using the block only after it became a practical possibility.
Another man, more irritated than himself, might have inflicted additional punishment on the neutralized enemy out of sheer vindictiveness. Draiken is irritated but not that irritated. He recognizes that he’s the aggressor here.
All things being equal, he probably owes this dangerous fellow an effusive apology.
Draiken has used a setting that paralyzes the man’s vocal cords, as well; but that does not mean he has to be silent himself. “You won’t believe this, but I’m sorry.”
His captive’s gray eyes regard him with natural skepticism.
“I told you I don’t expect you to believe it. But I’m not an assassin sent to kill you, or a bounty hunter sent to deliver you to your enemies. I just need to take you someplace for a while. When I’m done with you, you’ll be free to go. I’ll even compensate you for your trouble.”
More skepticism.
“No, I still don’t expect you to believe it. But now’s as good a time as any to introduce the premise. I’ll go into detail later.”
Draiken deactivates the heat generating function on Jathyx’s knife, and stows it among his own belongings, in order to return it to him later. This might not be the safest possible concern, but for all he knows, it’s a prized possession with sentimental value. He’s not a gentle man, but he can be a polite one.
Then he says, “I’m also sorry for this next part,” because he is.
He steps over Jathyx in order to pass him in the narrow space, gets a grip under the arms, gets his upper half off the deck, and commences dragging him. For the first couple of paces the spilled blood on the floor serves as a lubricant, rendering the effort just slightly easier than it might have been otherwise; but it’s still dragging a dead weight, while winded and wounded himself, and it costs him more of his failing strength. He huffs. There’s no point in fooling himself. He might be in superb condition by most human standards, but he’s still an old man.
Only a couple of meters later, not quite spent but not feeling great either, he reaches the place he’s been aiming for, a hard left at the end of the corridor, representing the outer station wall. He lowers his captive to the ground, takes a deep breath that fails to make him feel any better, and taps the voice-activated hytex link on his throat. “I’m here.”
“That would be true no matter where you were. I presume you mean at the rendezvous?”
He sighs. “Yes.”
“And from the sound of it, still alive.”
“Yes.”
“I confess relief. I wasn’t sure you would be.”
“Neither was I,” Draiken says. “Our intel was correct. This is one deadly son of a bitch.”
“It’s always a relief to find out you can trust your intel. Commencing burn.”
A black dot, representing the activities of a programmed nano-fleet, appears waist-high in the bulkhead to the right, expands in two directions to become a horizontal line, then after achieving its desired width, heads downward to incorporate a pair of parallel vertical lines. At floor-level the two endpoints head toward one another again, and upon joining, form a square cut-out.
The cut-out slides away, and Delia Stang appears in the opening. She is a massive woman, a titan by any reckoning, and certainly too large to fit through that gap herself, not with her shoulders, which have—if anything—grown even larger since his unfortunate first encounter with her on New London. She’s constantly working on her physique, is Delia Stang, and she does not seem anywhere near satisfied with the results even though she already appears more like idealized and animated statuary than a human being. This is literally true. Her face is tinted a shade of metallic gold that shines as if gilded, though it’s just the color she’s chosen for herself, for reasons she’s never d
eigned to share with him. Right now, that myrmidon face shows nothing but relief. “You do look even more like crap than usual.”
“I’m not surprised. Be gentle getting him out of here.”
Her gigantic arms gleam in the brighter light of the corridor as they emerge from the opening and, by her definition of gentle, drag the immobilized man into the darker space beyond.
The oblong space Draiken enters on following suit is one of those forgotten places left behind, when various strata of civilization insist on building upon those that come before them. It is what got left behind by the years of refits the surrounding infrastructure has undergone to accommodate the dimensions of human beings. Someday very soon it will be incorporated in an expansion of the corridor Draiken just left, but for now it is a dim and dusty emptiness, sealed off and unsuspected by most going about their business in the more heavily traveled sections of Piithkarath. It is pressurized, and within the station’s generated gravity field, but is lit only by the little portable lamps that Stang has affixed on the ceiling to keep her company while she waited for Draiken to make this rendezvous.
All week long she’s been letting him know that she resents her relatively passive role in this operation, and she continues bitching now as she takes her tools and fuses the cut-out section of corridor wall back to its original home. “How was it in there? Nice and roomy, I suppose.”
“Downright luxurious,” he says.
“Nothing but elbow room for a pair of tiny killers like you. It’s a wonder you even noticed each other, in a space that palatial.”
Stang is realistic about her size, having done everything she can during her life to build on it, but not happy about the practical considerations that prevented her from taking a more active role, fighting by his side in the corridor.
Just yesterday, trying to make light of it, Draiken told her that it would be the tightest spot she’d been in since the birth canal. The remark had not gone unpunished.