“You know I am right, don’t you?”
Jones sighed.
“Maybe…I don’t know. And…and what if Taylor loses?”
“Then we all go down with him, and so does she.”
“You would go through with that?”
“I would, but it is not even my call. Admiral Vega is poised to press that button, and I have every faith in him. He would not hesitate to do it. He is every bit the warrior that Taylor is, and you are, too.”
“So we do what…nothing?”
Rogers looked as insulted as he did surprised.
“We have not done nothing. We have all done everything that we can do. We have given Taylor the best shot he will ever have at this.”
Jones paced back and forth, knowing Rogers was right, and yet it was a horrible feeling to know that he was powerless.
“Let it be. The fight is the Colonel’s now,” said Turan.
Jones looked to the other two and could see they agreed. He looked back to the screen. Taylor was back on his feet and circling Bolormaa. He had the bladed end of his Assegai in hand, which made it as short as the early model weapons, and his shield was activated in the other. It was the way they all thought of Taylor, the sword and shield brawler and dirty fighter.
Taylor had a new look of confidence on his face. None of them understood where it had come from. It was as if all his fears had washed away.
“Why do you insist on fighting for these people?” Bolormaa asked.
“Because I care. I care what happens to my world, and my people.”
“Your people? They would have left you in that capsule for all of eternity, had I not come.”
“So I am alive because of you? Thanks, I’ll be sure to send you a thank you card,” he joked.
“All of your willpower and all of your strength, and you waste it defending a useless civilisation, and a false Alliance, an Alliance of the weak-minded and weak willed. It’s such a waste. Come to me, join me, and become my champion.”
Taylor lowered his weapons and let go of his fighting posture to stand casually and laugh at her.
“You would have me as your champion?”
“Why not? You are the most worthy of your kind. You could have everything if you submitted to me.”
He laughed once again.
“What is so funny?” she demanded.
“That you are desperate enough to make that offer. You are scared. You aren’t sure you can win. You think you still can, but there is that little shred of doubt nagging away at the back of your mind, isn’t there?” he asked and kept laughing.
It gave him new hope, and it greatly pleased him to see the discomfort on her face. He didn’t know whether what he said was true, but it had embarrassed her enough to make her angry again. It was clear to both of them that is how it would look to anybody watching.
“You know why I would never work for you, because you are an arrogant asshole that has no respect for anything or anybody. You are exactly the kind of scum I go out of my way to avoid. Avoid until you stand in my way, at which time you become my problem.”
“You would rather die than be given the best life anyone could ever ask for?”
“I’d rather die than carry out a single order in your name, yes.”
“Then die you will!”
She charged forward once again. She cut with her sword with rapid speed. He parried cut after cut with his shield, but she kept up the pressure, and the power of the blows was immense. After a dozen strikes his shield began to lose power, and another strike pierced it, cutting down to his arm and the power supply for it. The shield vanished, and the blade cut through his forearm armour, a long cut over a centimetre deep into his arm. It was excruciating painful, although once again the red-hot blade sealed his wound. The arm weakened slightly, but there was no blood loss.
She kicked him to the chest, and he was thrown back. He rolled and somehow managed to come back onto his feet. Though he had been rocked by it, and now he had no defence against her blade besides his own speed, which was diminishing over time. The suit still had plenty of power, but his body was weakening. The force and pressure Bolormaa was striking him with was phenomenal, and it was very clear to him that he had never experienced her full potential until now.
“You really want to die here today?”
“If that is what is called for. If that is what is necessary.”
“I do not want to see you die, only for you to accept defeat. I ask you again. Accept me as your ruler, accept me as your God, and I will let you live.”
He didn’t respond, as if wanting to let her wait. The truth was he was using the moment to catch his breath.
“So what will it be? Will you submit?”
“Nuts!” was all he said.
CHAPTER 12
A smile stretched across Jones’ face, and he looked over to see Rogers in much the same state. Turan and Sommer didn’t get it, but the other two knew their history well enough to be entertained.
“What is he doing?” Sommer asked.
“He said no,” replied Rogers.
“He said to go screw herself. That’s what he said,” added Jones.
They watched as Bolormaa ran at him angrily. He ducked and turned, parrying off her blade with the edge of his Assegai time and time again. Occasionally, he would get a strike in, but just one for every dozen she threw at him. Finally, she slashed with a brutal cut that sliced what was left of his Assegai in two. It passed right through to cut into his torso armour. Taylor let out a cry of pain as he was spun around from the weight of the impact. His back was to her for a moment, and all the cameras were on him. She could have finished it there and then. But she placed her foot on his back and kicked hard. He was thrown through the air and landed face first, sliding to a halt.
“Come on, get up,” whispered Jones.
They were all huddled around and watching on his screen, even though they could just as easily use their own. The view was from a camera feed low down in the arena, almost at eye level where Taylor lay in the dirt. He looked defeated. He could barely get up. His chin was cut open where he had slid across the ground, and he looked stunned. They could make out the silhouette of Bolormaa in the background. She was standing there as if revelling in the moment. Had she truly won?
“Come on, get up you son of a bitch. You aren’t done yet, get up,” insisted Jones.
He knew Taylor couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t help but be vocal on the subject.
“This can be it, come on, fight this!” he yelled.
Rogers nodded in agreement.
“This can’t be the end. We’ve come too far,” said Sommer.
They were all starting to realise that Taylor might not be able to do it.
“He can do this, right?”
Rogers shrugged, and that wasn’t the answer Sommer wanted. She grabbed hold of him and shook him violently.
“You sent the Colonel out there to die!”
He didn’t respond. He was too stunned by everything that was happening.
“Hey, come on, give it up. We did everything we could to help the Colonel, and he isn’t done yet,” said Jones.
She piped down, and they all turned back to the screen. Taylor was still breathing, but he looked almost dead as he lay face down in the dirt.
“So this is what it has come to? After all your efforts, your losses, and your hard work, it all comes down to this, and still you have lost. You should never have even bothered!” Bolormaa declared.
Taylor’s head rose up slowly, enough to get some air. He was still prone on the ground. Nobody could tell if it was because he wanted to stay there or because he couldn’t get up. None of them knew how serious the cut to his torso had been. He looked around for something, anything. That was when he spotted the whip sword within reach.
“All of that was for nothing. You are going to die here, Colonel…” she carried on.
He reached out quickly and took hold of the hilt of the weapon. She conti
nued her monologue as if to appease her own desire to hear her voice over and over. He spun around, sat up, and sprung the three-bladed weapon at her. It caught her quite by surprise. The blades lashed around her right leg and cut into her legs. Taylor was on his feet in no time and yanked as hard as he could. Bolormaa’s leg was ripped out from under her, and she flew up into the air before crashing down hard. The whip uncoiled itself as Taylor pulled again.
Bolormaa’s sword had fallen from her grasp, and she reached for it from the ground, but Taylor launched the whip blade at it, yanking it out of the way. The heavy khopesh flew across the room and struck the boundary wall pommel first, bouncing off and landing back in the arena. Bolormaa tried to get to her feet, but Taylor lashed the whip once again at her. It snagged her arm, and he pulled her down once again.
Taylor was smiling now as he toyed with her. He was far faster with the weapon than the Prince had been. He flashed it back and forth. The blade cut again and again against her. Not enough to kill, but many of the lashes were cutting deep, and he kept on striking as he circled her so that she was disorientated. Lastly, he launched a direct attack for her throat. Her narrow neck looked like the perfect target, and he landed the blow. All three blades lashed around her neck and locked on, but she took hold of the blades even as sparks flew from them. In one quick motion she tugged back, and Taylor was thrown towards her.
She drove her fist into his head. It struck with such power that he was clotheslined and landed on the floor beside her feet. She unravelled the whip from her neck and cast it aside in disgust, turning her attention back to Taylor. She reached down, grabbed his torso armour, and hauled him off his feet. Neither was armed now, and she didn’t seem to care. She punched him to the face again and again. He staggered back, barely staying on his feet. It was as if she wanted to end him now with her bare hands.
Taylor spat out blood, and his face felt like a truck had flattened him. Another thunderous fist met his face, and his head crashed into the wall behind him.
“No matter what you do, you cannot win. You are going to die here.”
Taylor’s face turned from pain to scorn, as he turned back defiantly to face her. He would not go down now. She punched towards him, but he moved aside, cracking her in the face with a back fist, and leaping up to deliver a brutal knee to the stomach. She staggered back with a look of absolute horror on her face.
“You haven’t destroyed me yet, and you won’t do it today. I was born to fight assholes like you. Come at me!’ Taylor hollered.
He didn’t know where this new surge of energy had come from, but he wasn’t going to question it. She came forward, but her body language had changed completely. Her absolute confidence was gone. She was throwing cautious punches and slowing down as a result. Taylor passed off two of them and delivered a brutal counter punch to her chin. As she fell back, he kicked to her leg, and it buckled slightly under the weight of the impact. She came forward a little, and he followed it with an uppercut. It launched her off her feet, and she landed hard on her back, just as he had done before.
Bolormaa looked up at him from the flat of her back, and they could both see the dynamic of the fight was changing. Taylor couldn’t explain why, but he had mustered reserves he never knew he had, although he was painfully aware that the suit wouldn’t last for too much longer. She looked away, and Taylor followed her gaze to the Prince’s mace lying where Rogers had left it. She looked back to him, and Taylor knew exactly what she was doing. She was seeing if she could get on her feet and make it before he could stop her. They both knew she could. She leapt up, and Taylor’s eyes shot around to look for something else to use.
He spotted Rogers’ Assegai, and it was even closer than the mace was for Bolormaa. He jumped for it and rolled onto one knee. She reached the mace and snatched it up, but as she turned to face Taylor, he launched the fully extended Assegai as if it were a javelin. The blade burrowed deep into her stomach all the way to the hilt and burst out of her back. The mace fell from her grasp, and she dropped onto her knees in shock. She looked down at the weapon embedded in her body, and then back up to Taylor in disbelief of what he had done to her.
“The great Bolormaa, beaten by a man. You are no queen, and you are no god. You are an imposter, a villain, and I will rid this world of you like the poison you are!”
She was not yet done. Blood poured from her wounds, but she took hold of the weapon with both hands and drew it from her body. She looked at the blood dripping down the shaft and onto her hands, before casting it aside in disgust.
“You are a trickster and a cheat, but you will not overcome a god by that alone,” she replied.
Her tone was completely different now. She knew she had been defeated, but something was not right. Her attitude was strange, as though she knew something that he did not.
“You are finished here.”
It seemed so simple, as if it was over, and he could finally finish her, but it wasn’t sitting comfortably with him. Bolormaa was acting very strangely.
“You were never going to win this war.”
She lifted her arm and pressed a button on a control module there. The doors that she had first entered through were slung open, and another creature passed through. With the spotlight in Taylor’s face, he couldn’t make out who it was at first. It was a Morohtan Prince, and larger than the two lying on the ground beside him. One of the spotlights panned to find him as the cameras shifted to this new opponent.
“Zaya,” whispered Taylor.
It was his worst nightmare coming true. Aside from Bolormaa, Zaya was the most powerful being he knew, and he was too weak, let alone empty-handed, to keep on fighting. Taylor backed off as the imposing creature stepped into the arena. He was decorated with the most elaborate armour. Brand new as if Bolormaa had lavished him with the best she had to give.
The three of them formed a triangle, not one making a move, as if it were a Mexican stand off, and yet only one of them was armed. Zaya carried a curved blade with a grip almost as long as the blade itself. It looked agile and as though it would deliver horrific damage.
“Taylor, meet my favourite son. You have met him before, I believe.”
“You don’t have to do this. You remember what she did to you,” said Taylor.
“Zaya is my right hand. Nothing you pathetic mortal can say will carry weight with him. He is mine, loyal to me only, just as you should have been. I gave you a chance, Colonel, a chance to be great. You could have lived as the great hero your people always should have treated you as, but now you will die like the rest of them. Kill him,” she ordered.
“No,” he stated firmly.
Both Taylor and Bolormaa looked at him in sheer amazement. Taylor hoped that meant what he thought it did, but knew not to hold onto what seemed too good to be true.
“Kill him, now!” she screamed.
* * *
“What the hell is going on?” Sommer asked.
“He never turned…he never turned,” Rogers repeated in astonishment.
“What do you mean he never turned?”
“Zaya, he didn’t go back to her, Jones. He just waited. He was biding his time for the right moment to strike. He knew he could never do it alone…”
Rogers was just shaking his head and smiling as if all his wishes had come true all at once.
“What are you saying?”
Rogers just pointed to the screen.
“Watch, Sommer. All of you watch.”
* * *
“Strike him down, now!” Bolormaa insisted.
There was worry in her voice, and Taylor could see exactly where this was going.
“You will not defy me,” she snarled.
“Why? What would you do?”
“You serve me. I own you,” she snapped.
“And now you see why ruling through fear is not a good thing,” Taylor said with a wicked grin.
“I order you to kill him, now!”
Zaya didn’t move.
�
��You betrayed me, your own son, your favourite son. I don’t even know why I was surprised. It took me hundreds of years to accept the reasons why, and yet it is here for all to see,” he said, pointing to his fallen brothers.
“You care for nothing and nobody but yourself. You are not a god, but you could have lived as one if you had cared about a single being but yourself.”
“I made you something great. How could you ever have gotten to where you are today with me?”
“Maybe I could have respected that once, but you betrayed me a long time ago, and I see you for what you are. I would see you dead if it cost me everything in this life, including my last breath.”
She paced across the arena as if thinking about what was facing her. Both of them were aware of what she was doing. She was ambling towards her khopesh, but Zaya didn’t care.
“Will you die on your feet like a warrior, or on your knees like a slave?” Zaya asked.
She didn’t try to hide it anymore. She picked up the blade just as Taylor reached the mace she had previously tried to reach. He’d liked the look of it from the moment he first caught sight of it, and certainly since he witnessed Rogers’ brutal display. He wanted something weighty to finish the job now, and that was just the tool. He circled round until once again the three of them formed a circle. He still had no trust for Zaya, but he did trust in one thing. Bolormaa’s son hated her as much as he did.
“If you do this, if you turn on me now, there is no going back,” said Bolormaa.
The threat was hollow, as Taylor could tell she was scared now. He heard a three-tone bleep in his suit, and he knew what that meant. The power was running low. He wanted to finish the job, and quickly. Bolormaa knew she could not defeat the two of them together. Blood still dripped from her wound, and she looked in severe pain from it. She was not even walking quite upright.
“Remember what I said, no second chances. If you defy me now, you will pay for it for an eternity.”
“Not if you don’t live to see another day, Mother.”
She wasn’t going to make the first move, not wanting to fight unless it was absolutely necessary. Zaya still seemed reluctant, or perhaps he was just revelling in the moment he had been waiting for his entire life.
Battle Beyond Earth - Box Set (Books 6-9) Page 61