Fusar felt her nerves rise again and was grateful for Jake’s comforting presence by her side. Their pleasant route took them to an open plaza dominated by an amphitheater built into the ground. Terraced seats undulated sharply to a circular pit at the bottom. The battleground. The terraces were already filled with a colorful array of Jaj senators, aides and dignitaries.
A row at the front of the amphitheater was reserved for Barras and his people. The Senator had a final word to his champion, who then took a drop shaft into the bowels of the underground facility.
Fusar was surprised to find herself sitting next to Barras himself. Jake, of course, made sure he was on her other side. A Jaj in medical robes looked intently in her direction and she was glad for the Senator’s proximity. Of course, she was a political asset and Barras was probably making his own point to the Emperor.
Silvius and a retinue of Imperial guards made their entrance on the far side of the amphitheater. A litany of Senators lined up to greet him like an old friend, no doubt keen to distance themselves from Barras’s unexpected challenge. Many also ensured they nodded respectfully in the Senator’s direction, just in case they were looking at the new Emperor.
“Politics is a slippery beast,” Jake said with disgust. “The sooner we’re away from the capitol, the better.”
Fusar had to agree. A nasty atmosphere permeated here. She couldn’t help but feel like a pawn in a deep and complex political game.
A shadow passed over the pit as a shade cloth whirred into place far above them. With typical Jajian efficiency, the Emperor stood and began speaking.
“Salutations, friends,” he said, beaming. “It is with honor that I announce an impending challenge to the Imperial throne. As is tradition, a Trial of Champions will decide the matter. Senator Barras’s Champion is paladin Pallas Semplar - as fine a soldier as I’ve seen. My own Champion is well known to you all - Gyra Fashiel. Mother, strategist, fighter.”
The assembled Senators gave an appreciative cheer. Fusar looked sharply at Jake - the Emperor’s Champion was a woman? How was that possible? The duellist held her hand, which was timely as she was beginning to panic again. The Emperor’s jolly, amiable tone filled her with the blackest dread, which was probably the point. His supreme confidence was like a hammer blow before the fighting had even started.
“Enjoy the duel,” the Emperor said, as if he were introducing a ballroom soiree. Fusar was under no illusions at all - this would be a few minutes of bloody grunt work to decide the fate of an empire.
Pallas Semplar and Gyra Fashiel strode into the pit from opposite ends. Fusar could just make out rectangular cavities in the wall that housed various weapons. For the moment, all were enclosed with force fields.
“Poisoned apples,” Jake muttered. “Reaching for one of those is a fatal mistake in close-quarters melee.”
Fusar could see how that might be true. She just hoped with all her being that this Semplar character was as good as everyone said he was.
The adversaries circled each other with little fanfare. Gyra, the Emperor’s Champion, was the largest Jaj Fusar had yet seen. The fact that she was also a woman was astounding. Her bloated, inflamed braids suggested there was something awry with her chemical makeup. Considering that almost all Jaj females suffered from the mysterious XX-toxin, it was possible that Gyra was a victim of genetic experimentation.
Perhaps the Jaj had privately found a cure, of sorts, but something that resulted in the hideous side effects now on display. In any case, Gyra was a something of a monster. Fusar wondered at the Champion’s cerebral function as she stamped her feet and snarled at Semplar. She was so disturbingly primitive, one had to question whether she could be considered Jajian at all.
Armor was illegal in a Trial of Champions. Both combatants wore nothing but a simple loincloth. Gyra’s breasts hung low and heavy. That calloused skin looked a worthy armor substitute.
The Imperial Champion wasted little time in lunging for Semplar, who tumbled neatly underneath her bulky arm. Gyra anticipated the move with startling alacrity, making light contact with the paladin using her hip. The contact seemed light, but Semplar crashed into the stone wall. He recovered quickly, but the move demonstrated just what Gyra’s sheer bulk could do.
Semplar bolted to the other end of the pit to give himself some space. As Gyra approached, he launched a flying kick that hit her square in the snout. She took a step back, momentarily disoriented, while Semplar pushed forward to her feet. The problem was her size. Semplar was a burly warrior but he only reached Gyra’s waist. His best shot was a punch to the groin, but that was well-protected by her thick loincloth.
Gyra lashed out with her leg, kneeing Semplar in the chest before he could roll away. He was instantly on his feet and laying into Gyra’s right knee with both fists, but his face was a mask of pain.
“Best case, broken rib,” Jake commented. “Worst case, collapsed lung.”
Fusar clenched her hands as she watched Gyra wind up for another brutal attack. Semplar was obviously well trained, putting on a show of moving freely. broken rib or not. Gyra didn’t give the paladin a chance to recover his breath, pressing hard and cramping him for room.
Semplar spun around for a roundhouse kick right on the knee he’d been working on earlier. The blow would’ve smashed the patella of most creatures Fusar knew, but not Gyra. The visible effect was a momentary loss of momentum, which Semplar exploited by giving himself more room.
Gyra paused for a moment, which looked to Fusar like a fatigue issue, but Jake leaned forward urgently.
“Move, dammit,” he muttered.
Semplar was a split second too late. Gyra heaved her bulk forward at astonishing speed, pressing her challenger against the wall. A second later she was on her haunches, panting hard. The move had clearly taken a lot out of her. Fusar waited for Semplar to renew his attack, but he didn’t appear. The point of impact was directly beneath her and she couldn’t see him.
A number of nearby onlookers rushed along the terraces to get a better look. Senator Barras just sat with his head in his hands. Her sickening dread threatening to overwhelm her, Fusar jogged edged around to a better vantage point.
Semplar was a chunky smear on the pit wall. Blood, bone and brains were mixed in a congealed mess. The challenger’s lower left leg and right hand had somehow escaped impact and hung from the rest of the body via a few obstinate threads of sinew.
Fusar didn’t dare breathe out. She couldn’t quite believe how abruptly, how brutally this fight had ended. Gyra the Dominant had claimed another victim and Senator Barras’s burgeoning power had been smashed for good.
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If history was any guide, the losing challenger was “welcomed” back into the fold with all due respect and regard. But over time, his clan lost power and influence, eventually resulting in expulsion from the Great Clans. It could take the better part of a century for losing Clans to claw their way back from the wilderness. Nobody wanted to do business with a losing Clan.
Emperor Silvius was looking across at Barras as if the Senator had been beaten in a pleasant game of chess. He turned to Fusar and his eyes took on a predatory gleam. Realizing she was in danger, Fusar looked around for Jake. He was cutting through the gawking throng with a grim expression. She allowed her guardian to take her hand and lead her from the amphitheater.
The pair headed back through the bamboo stand with a number of Barras’s panicked aides. Their futures, so promising when the day dawned, had been completely shattered. Up ahead the cruiser beckoned. Sky-blue stewards were boarding through the aft ramp unimpeded.
Fusar’s heart lurched when she saw a ring of Imperial guards. If they weren’t stopping the Barras Clan, they must be waiting for her. The Emperor was happy for the Senator to leave with his tail between his legs, but Fusar was now Imperial property.
“Stay close to me,” Jake said as they approached.
Mandie, who had been providing cover some thirty yards behind, now emerged alon
gside.
“Trouble, Jake,” she said. “What should we do?”
Fusar didn’t like the tone of the mercenary’s question. Once again Fusar got the distinct impression Mandie was looking for an opportunity to flee with Jake. The duellist shot the mercenary a glance that spoke volumes - he wasn’t about to leave Fusar to be probed and prodded by heartless medics.
“Yield,” he said under his breath. “Let the guards think they have us.”
Fusar didn’t know what Jake had in mind, but readily agreed to the first part of his plan. Senator Barras was talking urgently with a guard and glancing back at her. The slimy head medic who had performed unknown tests on Fusar stepped forward.
“You are now under Imperial command,” he said stiffly. “You will hand over your weapons please. I will take you to your permanent quarters.”
With a quick glance at Jake, Fusar bowed her head in acquiescence. Jake and Mandie handed over their pistols to a paladin.
“Wish I could trade for my own pistols,” Jake muttered. Fusar remembered that the duellist had been forced to give up his beloved pistol set last time they were in Ebessa.
“The Emperor is exercising his authority,” Senator Barras said, marching over to Fusar’s side. “I’m sorry. I’ve done all I can.”
The Senator’s braids trembled and his leathery face glistened with sweat. His Imperial challenge couldn’t have ended more disastrously, and now he was destined to be stripped of power and marginalized.
“I appreciate your efforts, Senator,” Fusar said, genuinely thankful for his protection.
“Me too,” Jake said in a soft voice. “But keep the cruiser running for five minutes all the same. Pretend you have a prop glitch or something.”
The Senator looked doubtfully at Jake, but nodded before disappearing up the aft ramp.
“Lead the way,” Jake said to the head medic. An escort duly formed around them. As they settled into a rhythm, Fusar took the opportunity to study their captors.
The head medic had two brown-robed assistants, who walked at the rear of the party. Four scarlet paladins provided the muscle, two on either side. The foremost pair walked five yards ahead of the prisoners. The one near Fusar carried their surrendered pistols.
At length the party traversed a second landing pad and arrived at the entrance to a bunker. One of the paladins keyed in a security sequence and everyone entered a world of darkness.
Sensor lights flickered into life to reveal a plain stairwell. The only sound was the steady beat of combat boots on the stairs. After the first landing, the foremost paladins advanced to a security door at the bottom of the next flight.
Jake slowed a little, then rocked back on his heels. Time seemed to slow down as one of the paladins pulled the door back …
Jake covered the four yards in less than a second. He didn’t immediately reach for the paladin, instead grasping the edge of the door. He swung it back savagely, cracking the paladin’s helm and causing him to stagger backwards.
The other warrior by the door was already reaching for his weapon - a combat rifle. By this stage Fusar was instinctively crouching low, watching the emergent violence like a midwife watches a difficult birth. How did Jake expect to best four paladins?
With Mandie’s help.
“Move, Fusar!”
The barked command was so fierce that Fusar was on the move before Mandie had completed it. The Jaj girl pressed herself against the wall and watched a paladin tumble head over heels down the steps. Their captured pistols clattered to the ground. She actually felt a stab of jealousy as the tumbling Jaj took the legs out from the paladin with the cracked helm. Jake and Mandie had the synchronicity of an experienced tandem. Fusar could only dream of such sublime timing.
Jake was grappling with the rifle-wielding paladin, who must’ve been regretting his choice of weapon. Jake had chosen his moment perfectly. Mandie was likewise occupied with the fourth paladin at the top of the stairs. Clearly untrained for the explosive situation, the medics hung back in shock. Sooner or later one of them would trigger a general alert.
Thinking quickly, Fusar’s gaze settled on the fallen pistols. She retrieved one and leveled it at the foremost medic. She flinched as a plasma bolt hit him right between the eyes. Appalled at her own violence, she wasted a second medic with a safer shot through the chest.
The head medic remained, cowering in the corner with a finger poised on his wrist pad. Fusar hauled herself up the stairs with a fury that sprang from within like a demon.
“Let me run my own test,” she said in a voice thick with bile. She fired the pistol until its heat inhibitor stopped her. The medic’s face was a mangled mess soft pulp.
“I’d say you’re fucking dead.”
In one of those surreal moments of the battlefield, Fusar heard Jake snort with laughter. Either that, or he was in a world of pain from the kidney punch he’d just received. Like him, Mandie was facing off against two combatants, although the one with the cracked helm seemed a little unsure of himself.
Fusar’s pistol was useless against paladin armor so she threw it at the one with the damaged helm. She followed up with a brutal front kick that sent him thundering down the stairs. It just wasn’t his day. He struck the edge of the metal door and this time he stayed down.
Jake was trading blows with his opponents. Fusar winced at the sheer ferocity of the paladins’ melee attacks. Surely Jake couldn’t take the punishment much longer.
It was now or never - Fusar had to believe in her fighting abilities. She moved in close to the nearest paladin and kicked at the hinge joint behind his knee. The armor was so hard she jarred her leg. The paladin turned and punched her in the chest with a brutal uppercut. She doubled over, gasping for breath, but something spurred her on.
Rolling instinctively, she narrowly avoided a blow that would’ve opened her head like a melon. Her lack of melee training was a major disadvantage, but there was a small consolation - her random, erratic moves were difficult to anticipate.
Still gasping, she stepped into her opponent, her arms in constant movement. The unorthodox maneuver bought her time as the paladin grabbed her arms. Drawing her close, he butted his helm against her face. She staggered back against the stairs, feeling like her face had been rearranged. Her head exploded in agony as she struck the edge of a step. Blood flowing freely from her broken nose, Fusar could only gulp air as the paladin loomed over her.
He lifted a heavy boot to stomp her head …
“Keep her alive,” spat another paladin.
Shrugging, the paladin shaped to kick her in the midriff. She caught the leg with both hands and pushed back with all her strength. The paladin ricocheted off the wall and interrupted Jake’s desperate grapple. With space to work in, Jake delivered an eye-wateringly flush kick to his opponent’s helm, snapping the man’s neck.
The duellist was onto the second paladin before the first had hit the ground. Unable to land meaningful blows on that armor, he tried to pull the warrior’s arms from their sockets. Gripping the paladin’s enormous, leathery hands, Jake pulled hard, bringing the bulky Jaj headfirst into the wall. Fusar stood ready for the ricochet, kicking the paladin in the midriff.
Jake grabbed the stunned man by the collar and shoved him through the doorway, slamming it behind him. There wasn’t much time now. He stepped in behind Mandie’s opponent, slid the man’s helm off and began tearing at his fragile braids. The paladin went a little crazy, scrabbling at the walls before Mandie sank a plasma bolt in his head.
The offensive stench of body plasma and sweat filled the small space.
Fusar leaned against the wall, taking a moment to recover from the abrupt, deadly brutality of their scuffle. The bellow of ship exhaust filtered down from the surface.
“The cruiser,” Jake said. “Run!”
Fusar barely had the energy to put one foot in front of the other, but she dutifully followed the others to the surface. The cruiser was prepped and ready to lift, but the aft ramp was s
till lowered. The fugitives sprinted across the landing platform as a probing siren echoed throughout the Zigurat.
“Come on!” shouted a Barras Clan warrior from the ramp. The craft started rising when a squadron of paladins opened fire. The escapees leaped onto the ramp’s leading edge and rolled to safety. They tumbled into each other as the ramp snapped shut, too exhausted to stand.
“By the Warrior …”
It was the Senator’s incredulous voice, floating amid the general chaos. A pair of strong arms dragged Fusar to a chair and strapped her down. As the cruiser lurched into the air, one of Barras’s aides administered first aid to her facial injury.
“Not the first time I’ve seen a broken nose,” he said. “I’ve injected you with g-cell serum. You won’t win any beauty contests in the next few days, but you’ll be a lot better by the time we touch down.”
“Thank you.”
The aide stayed with Fusar until the cruiser leveled out at high altitude. Jake tapped him on the shoulder and took his seat.
“You did good, kid,” he said tiredly, wincing from a heavily bruised cheekbone. Something about his tone annoyed her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Are the Imperials following us?” she asked. Jake glanced at the Senator, hunched over in the front row.
“Barras took a massive risk, waiting for us,” he said. “We’ll have an entire legion on the doorstep within forty-eight hours.”
Fusar nodded grimly. She knew exactly what she had to do now, but Jake wasn’t going to like it one bit.
“Oh, no,” he said, seeing something in her eyes. “You’re not doing that.”
“Am I that transparent?” Fusar asked. “How the fuck do you do that?”
“Trade secret.”
Fusar punched Jake on the bicep. Mandie glowered at the pair from the end of the row.
Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera Page 45