by Rob Buckman
“She met the outbound freighter as she was boosting out and transferred the barges.”
“Under boost?!” Heartmore growled.
“Yes, not unusual, the skipper simply coasted while the transfer was underway, then continued his boost to the Warp Point.”
“I’m glad you remembered the incident, cadet.” He looked around at the rest of the class. “It also gives the rest of the class a secondary lesson in Stella navigation, and reminds us that sometimes each of you might be required to think outside the box.” He looked back at Mike. “I’ll check on your story, Cadet Gray, and, if correct you get an ‘A+’ on this assignment.”
“Thank you professor.”
The professor did check, and found Mike was correct in every detail, but later Mike kicked himself. It was show boating, and that sort of thing could get him into trouble in a hurry. His standing with Heartmore and his gang sank to a new low, if that was possible, and in direct proportion to the degree of harassment, he received. He’d find his locker turned upside down and fail to get everything back in place for the evening inspection. This meant extra guard duty and other sundry ‘dirty’ job to work off his long list of demerits. Eventually, it would come to a head, and Mike dreaded the moment.
* * * *
The simulator increasingly in difficult, coming down to sink or swim time as they started weeding out those unfit to sit in the Captains chair. The exercise program also grew more complex and starting the next day, they had been told martial arts and sword usage would be added. When the class heard that, most groaned, but Mike just grinned, he liked martial arts. Mike reported to the Medical Center that evening, and the Doctor gave him a clean bill of health, much to his puzzlement. There was no sign of any injury, and scratching head, he signed the release form. At Ten o’clock, the next morning they entered the gym and gathered around the mat, as the instructors put them thought some warm up and stretching exercises before they started. For an hour, he went through the usual positions, explaining stance, balance, weight shift and impact force, demonstrating his powers by smashing boards and bricks. By the ‘oo’s’ and ‘arr’s’ of the rest of the class, he could see they were impressed. Mike tried to look interested as he showed them different holds and throws, picking different cadets to practice on. Mike was a little perturbed at the amount of force he used, slamming his inexperienced opponent to the mat with unnecessary impact. More than one staggered to his or her feet a little dazed, and it was inevitable that he would finally choose Mike.
"You'd do!" He said, smiling.
"Excuse me, sir, but Cadet Gray is still recovering from a dislocated shoulder, and it wouldn’t be fair to use him.” Janice said quickly, as he stood up.
"Oh, I forgot, the Petty Officer Mitchell did inform me. Anyway, why don't you break up into two and we’ll try some of the moves I’ve shown you."
They did, spending a sweaty hour practicing under his watchful eye. After a break, he turned their attention to the pictures on the far wall, showing various positions for holding and using the dress sword.
When Mike first heard they be getting instruction in the use of the sword he thought it meant fighting, not just the ceremonial use, such as saluting and presentations. With that in mind, he’d brought his Katana, and it was with some embarrassment he walked to the other end of the gym and covered the Katana with his towel.
"Mr. Fry should be here shortly, until then continue in familiarizing yourself with the different manners of handling your dress sword. Carry on.” With that, he left and the class breathed a sigh of relief.
"So a woman had to come to your rescue again, Gray. I'm surprised, I thought you could take care of yourself.” Heartmore sneered, coming up behind him.
Mike ignored him and went to study the drawings. Heartmore and a crony began exercising, but it wasn’t what they were supposed to do, but fencing stances. It wasn’t long before they started an impromptu-fencing match. Mike watched, finding the moves awkward and stiff, unlike the fluid motion he was used to. Picking up the Katana, he thought for a moment, wondering if he had time to go and pick up his dress sword.
"Step onto mat, Gray and let’s see how you do with the meat cleaver you’re carrying.” Heartmore said, leveling his sword at Mike.
“No thank, not my style of fighting.” Heartmore moved off the mat and came towards him.
“Afraid I might hurt you?” he giggled, stepping towards Mike in two lunges, his feel slapping the floor as he moved. Mike didn’t move. Unconsciously the thumb of his left hand pushed up on the long hilt of his Katana, exposing two inches of bright blade.
“No.” He snapped thought gritted teeth.
“Then draw your weapons and let’s see what you’re got.” There was a light in Heartmore’s eyes that Mike didn’t like the look of. This wasn’t mealy some game to him, and behind the mask he was deadly serious.
The point of Heartmore’s saber touched the center of his chest, and he fought down the almost irresistible urge to unsheathe the Katana and attack. Memories of another place and time flashed across his mind. The words of insult, unjustified, cruel and cutting, his response and the blood. That one moment of madness had cost him more than he knew and the everlasting enmity of the family of the two dead boys, a family he loved like his own.
“No, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be a fair contest as neither of us is familiar with the others weapon.” He answered, feeling the blood start to pound in his temples.
“I think you are afraid.” Heartmore sneered, anger at Mike’s refusal to fight seeping to the surface.
The blood pounded in Mike’s ears and he felt his senses go into overdrive. Colors and scents shifted into brighter patterns and the world appeared to slow around him. Mike knew the signs and fought against them, unconsciously tensing his body instead of relaxing.
“I think one of us would get seriously hurt Heartmore!” Mike’s face turned to stone mask, betraying nothing of his inner conflict.
He saw Heartmore’s eyes flick down to his chest and the point of his sword, his fact draining of color. Had Mike looked down, he would have found that half an inch of the point of Heartmore’s blade buried in his chest, a trickle of blood worming its way down the front of his sweatshirt. Heartmore moved back, but stayed in the on guard position. He watched with weary eyes as Mike turned away. Had he left it there, the matter might have been forgotten, but he couldn’t resist one last dig.
“You’re a coward, Gray…”
Even as he spoke, Mike moved, smooth, flowing and incredible fast. One moment he was turning away, the next he was in motion, the gleaming Katana free of its scabbard, streaking through the air in an arc, up and over in a flashing circle of light. Heartmore saw the blade as an after image in his brain, but by then the razor sharp edge was sliced towards the junction between his neck and shoulder for a killing stroke. He was powerless to stop the sudden death, his sword so much useless metal in his hand.
“I told you, one of us could get seriously hurt Heartmore!” Mike hissed between clenched teeth.
Heartmore gulped carefully as he felt the feather touch of steel on his neck, wondering how Gray had managed to stop the blade from taking his head off. With that, Mike withdrew the Katana and without looked re-sheathed it in one fluid motion before turning to walk away. Most of the other cadets stood there in open-mouthed, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Even Janice had to re-wined the event in her mind’s eye and run it again. She remembered seeing Mike turn, as if to walk away, the words, then the flash of light on naked steel. The sheer impetus of the weapon should have sliced Heartmore’s head off, yet it stopped, halted in its death stroke no more than a hair's breathe from Heartmore’s skin.
She watched as Mike sheath his sword and walked calmly across the gym and out the door, his face an impassive mask. As he vanished through the doors, she looked back at Heartmore. He still stood there in the on guard position, his eyes slowly blinking, as if trying to understand what had just happened. Just then,
the door of the gym opened and the instructor returned, breaking the moment. Quickly, they returned to what they were supposed to be doing.
"I have just been informed that your instructor has been delayed due to the weather, and, I think that's enough practice for today, hit the showers and get ready for your next class. Carry on.”
CPO Miller watched them leave, wondering what he'd just seen through the window. He had been training for twenty years, and all that time he'd seen nothing like it. He knew that Heartmore was good with a sword with at least three duels to his credit, yet Cadet Gray had made it look like he was a beginner. There was something more to Cadet Gray than met the eye, and he made a mental note to keep these two apart from now on.
Janice made her way to the room, still slightly dazed. The scene playing over and over again in her mind. That was nothing compared to the shock she got when she walked into their room. She found Mike on his bed, withering in pain, a towel clamped between his teeth to muffle any sound he made.
“Mike! What on earth?” He looked at her a moment, then waved her away as he rolled over to face the wall. “I’ll call the medic, hold on, Mike.”
“No!” He choked out. “No medic... he can’t help me.”
“Yes, he can, epilepsy can be cured now.” Mike shook his head, waving her away from the comm unit.
“Not epilepsy.”
“Then what?” Just then, his back arched in pain and he sobbed into the towel. Jan just grabbed him and held on, feeling his body straining, muscles ridged.
“Mike, what can I do?”
“Nothing,” he gasped. “Punishment!”
“What? I don’t understand…” Just then, someone knocked on their door.
“Jan, can Jeff and I borrow…”
“Go away!” she yelled, not wanted anyone to see Mike in this condition.
“But we need…”
“Not now Cliff, come back later.”
“But I only want…” Cliff started to open the door, but before he could get it all the way open and step into the room, Janice was in his face.
“Did I give you permission to come into my room cadet!”
“No, I just thought!”
“You didn’t think you moron, go away… I’ll let you have the book later.”
With that, she pushed him back out into the hallway, slamming the door in his face.
“Sheesh! What a grouch!” Cliff muttered to himself as he walked away. She quickly wet a towel and brought it back and began wiping Mike’s face, and neck. It seemed to help, as the spasms or whatever slowed a little.
“Mike? What’s happening to you? What do you mean punishment?” He shook his head in answer, breath hissing between clenched teeth. “Please! I want to help.”
“Don’t say anything.”
“I won’t, trust me.” In answer, he gave her a death's head grin, shuddering as the next spasm passed.
In all it took an hour for the attack to pass and he was coherent again, his drained face starting to regain its color. Jan kept a watch over him, chasing away the seemingly endless people who knocked on their door for one reason or another. She’d never noticed before how many cadets came by during any given period, but now she did. At last, Mike sat up, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Can I have a drink of water?”
“Sure, stay there, I’ll get it.” She did, holding his head while he drank. “Can you tell me what happened now?” In answer, he shook his head.
“Not unless you swear you will never tell a living soul about what you just saw.”
“Mike, of course…”
“I mean it Jan. If this gets out it will ruin any chance I have at making a new life for myself.”
“Mike, I swear, I will never tell a living soul. On my honor as a…”
“Your word is good enough, Jan. You don’t have to put your family’s honor at stake here.” That gave Janice pause to think. If she betrayed his secret, she would be the one to pay the price, not the rest of her family.
“I’m not about to go blabbing this all over the school if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean that this is between us and no one else.” Jan nodded.
“If I ever hope to be a good ship’s Captain, then I’d better start learning to keep my mouth shut about certain things, hadn’t I,” she smiled, hoping to convey her sincerity.
“As I said Jan, it's punishment.”
“Punishment? I don’t understand. What on earth are you being punished for, and by whom?”
“Not on Earth, Jan. Avalon.”
“Avalon? But… you’re from Kellman.” Mike shook his head.
“I’m from Avalon, and it’s part of our system of justice.”
“You better explain this from the beginning.”
“That would be going back to far, let’s just say, I did something, and paid the price for it.”
“What?” She asked at length.
“I killed two men in a duel.”
“I see.” She didn’t, but just the fact he’d admitted killing two people sent a shiver up her back. Mike didn’t seem capable of killing anyone.
“Duels are permitted there as here, but only under the supervision of a proctor, or referee.”
“And you didn’t have one, did you?” It was a leap, but a correct one.
“It was all over in a moment, from the insult to the attack and my response.”
“Just an insult?”
“No, there’s more to it than that,” he hesitated a moment, “I’d just returned from, um, a dangerous situation. It’s not important where or what, but suffice to say, I was bone tired and upset, as I’d, um… I lost some of my people, my fault, I was in charge.”
“And?”
“It all came together at that one moment.”
“The two men, brothers were badgering me about a personal matter. It ended up in insults when I wouldn’t fight.”
“Something like today with Heartmore.”
“Yes, something like that. Anyway, I snapped. All the anger and frustration I felt came out.”
“So you kill both of them?”
“Not as simple as that. I crossed swords with one brother, and thought to end it with first blood as usual in such cases,” he paused as a flash of pain shot through him, “then his bother attacked me from the rear and I lost it.”
“Cowardly attack.”
“Yes, that’s what I felt at the time. It was unfair. I was playing by the rules, even without a proctor. I went blank, and before I knew it, both men were dead.”
“Good god! But how can they blame you?” Mike laughed, at some hidden joke.
“They didn’t, I did it myself.”
“You’ll have to explain that one.”
“On Avalon we don’t have a criminal justice system like yours.” Mike realized that he’d have to explain it all. “If a crime is committed, the people involved are brought in for questioning. In the presence of a judge, a doctor and a proctor plus an independent observer, the person is administered a truth drug by the Proctor.”
“And this is legal?”
“Oh yes. You see we don’t treat people as criminals, just as if they had an illness, a treatable illness. We don’t have courts, prisons or anything like that.”
“Oh, I see. I think.” Trying to imagine a planet without a real legal system of prisons. “Go on.”
“The first level is nothing more than a way to relax the people being questioned and asking him or her, what had happened. If they gather sufficient information that suggests the person is hiding something they can legally, with the agreement of the witnesses and the judge, be administered the second level.”
“So, you in fact incriminate yourself.”
“Yes. But it gets to the truth of the matter, and no innocent person ever suffers because of it.”
“But in your case, surely they’d know you were attacked?”
“How? The other two men were dead. They only had my word for what happened.
“Oh.”
“I was given level three and I admitted I wanted to kill them at some point in the duel.”
“So, what has this got to do with the pain?”
“I’m getting to that.” He sat up and turned so he was sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.
“On Avalon, every person is responsible for himself. He can do whatever he or she want, up to doing something that could get themselves killed.”
“Well, we can do that here.”
“True to a degree. On Avalon, the state has no rights to interfere. It’s our right as free citizens.”