by Don Foxe
Six minutes into the battle, Sky side-stepped an attack, placing her at an angle to her opponent. She swept her right leg against her cousin’s left knee, and slammed her stick into the other woman’s exposed side.
AStermalanlan landed on her left buttocks, the air pushed out in a big whoomph. She lay flat on the mat, breathing hard. Sky used her stick to lean on, as she tried to gather oxygen for extremely depleted lungs.
When AStermalanlan began to giggle (yes, giggle), Sky reached down, and helped lift her to her feet. The two were drenched in sweat, which did wonders for how they fit into their clothes.
AStermalanlan tossed her stick to Coop and said, “Your turn.”
The stick was heavier than it appeared, about the weight of a strong quarterstaff. It might have been wood, or it might have been an exotic material. It had a slightly rough, unpolished surface. This would make it usable when his hands began to sweat. It was tapered to flat tips at either end, similar to the BO used in karate weapons training. Six feet in length, thicker in the middle at two inches, and perfectly balanced.
He had trained with hand weapons since he began martial arts as an Army brat. He did not twirl it, or give any indication he was comfortable with the concept of using a fighting stick.
“You need to take a few more minutes to recover,” he told Sky, whose chest was still lifting and falling quickly as her breathing tried to even out, and her heart rate came down.
The room had become an arena, as crew members of different races, male and female, entered, and stood in the rear of the studio. Since they posed no threat, he had not taken his eyes, or attention from the females during combat.
Sky and AStermalanlan used towels from a nearby shelf to dry sweat from their faces and arms. Cooper had a decision to make. No one on board the Star Gazer knew anything about humans. Not even the Fell knew that, while he was human, he had gone through a genetic and physical re-engineering program which made his bones nearly impossible to break. His strength nearly six-times a normal human male’s. He moved faster by far than average, with quicker response times.
He could either hold back with Sky, even lose to her to conceal his capabilities. He could let it all out, and Fellen and Osperantue alike might believe all humans were as gifted as he. That could give them a stronger position in any negotiations, treaties, discussions, or disagreements that might come up in the future . . . at least until they learned the truth.
Sky’s breathing returned to normal. She returned to the mat, stick in both hands, and ready.
Coop placed the pole AStermalanlan had given him on the ground while he unlaced, and removed his boots. Sky was confident in her ability. If she was indicative of her race, they were a people used to coming out on top. She was self-assured, not only in her ability to fight, but to win. He liked her, hell, he admired her, but sooner or later an alpha must emerge. Looked like it was about to happen sooner.
He retrieved the fighting stick, stepped onto the mat and faced her. He held the stick loosely, as if uncomfortable, and unfamiliar with the concept of combat using a piece of wood (or whatever). He gave her a sheepish look, and a shrug of the shoulders, physically asking ‘Now what?’, knowing she would take advantage of his relaxed demeanor.
Sky’s pupils dilated. She squinted. Because her right-hand dominated, her stick started at him with an underhand straight swing at his left arm, her left hand pulling backward at the same time her body swiveled. This added as much power into the hit as she could generate. Her plan to numb his arm, and end the fight with one blow.
Cooper simply stepped backward. Simple, but his movement fluid, and so quick, Sky’s roundhouse swing sent her flying through the blow that never landed. She did not encounter the momentum-stopping resistance she expected. As she moved in front of Cooper, off balance and trying to throw her front foot out to catch her balance, he hit her in the ass with a crescent kick delivered by his left foot, sending her forward and down.
To her credit, she landed in a front roll and came up spinning around to face him. Consternation, not caution on her face. Unwilling to accept his speed had surprised her, she launched herself at him. Her stick became a whirling, twisting weapon she fully intended to beat him with.
Using no more energy than necessary, and with simple hand and body movements to accomplish his goals, Cooper parried every blow Sky rained down. She came high to low, across the body, body spinning, and stick coming at him like a baseball bat, low to high. She threw what amounted to punch after punch, never landing any, always having the thud of his stick blocking hers, regardless of the direction it came from.
The Fellen backed away. Her hair was wet and slick; her arms shiny with beaded perspiration. The tight black outfit molded to every crook and cranny of her body. She had tried to hit him with everything she had. She bent over from the waist in an attempt to pull oxygen into her lungs. The full-on attack had lasted ten minutes. An insane amount of time at the intensity she had maintained. Anyone in less condition would have knocked on the door of a heart attack.
Cooper stood quietly watching her. The stick stood on end, his weight resting upon the thin rod. His breath came deep, but not labored. Sweat beads on his forehead did not drip into his eyes.
He could see the frustration in Sky’s eyes. They became a deeper orange-red, and her skin grew darker. She was angry. She was not, however, defeated.
He never landed a blow of his own. He never tried.
AStermalanlan stood within a foot of the mat, at a right angle to Sky. Her mouth open and her breathing raspy. She was excited. She was turned on by the fight. It appeared Fellen, at least the females, were born for physical contact, whether it was sex, or a hand-to-hand battle.
Coop tossed the stick to its owner, and beckoned her onto the mat with his left hand. She accepted the offer. He focused on the space between the two women, allowing him to watch both. He finger-waved the ‘come and get it’ signal, as he settled into a classic martial arts stance.
The two had obviously practiced combined attacks. They moved into a strategy which sent AStermalanlan first, with Sky a half-step behind.
For the first time that day, AStermalanlan screamed as she swung her stick low, aiming to take Cooper at the knees. The other match had been fought in silence. Now, tricks were used, including attempting to startle your opponent.
Sky was close behind, her swing higher, and from the opposite direction, expecting to take Cooper out when he tried to dodge AStermalanlan. Though weary from the two previous bouts, she looked as quick as before.
Coop turned, right shoulder forward, and stepped on the incoming low stick, timing it perfectly. The stick and AStermalanlan’s captured hands ended up flat on the floor. With less than a second to react, he threw his right arm up in a back-fist block, which stopped the higher stick in mid-air. His arm would become deeply bruised, but his re-engineered ulna was stronger than the fighting stick. He dropped his right hand down on the stationary stick that still vibrated in Sky’s hands, and pulled, using his strength to send her flailing to land flat on her stomach, half on and half off the mat. There was no acrobatic tumble this time.
He had stepped off the grounded stick to flip Sky, but he used the toss to complete a 360 degree circle. His foot came down on the stick, again pinning it, and AStermalanlan’s hands to the mat. She screamed a feline howl, but this time in anger and frustration, not to intimidate, or startle.
Again he stepped off. He turned and walked to the far edge of the mat. He turned back, faced the two women lying on the mat, and waited. His focus on the two of them. Both focused on him. All three aware the spectators were screaming and cheering. Because it held no impact on the confrontation, they ignored the noise. Consigning it to another compartment in their consciousness.
Sky dropped the stick, and charged him, no longer caring about being part of a team. She still had not uttered a sound. AStermalanlan was the screamer. She watched Sky’s attack, waiting for an opening of her own.
Sky was five
-feet away when she launched herself at him. That was a mistake, and demonstrated her training was less formal than it should have been. A body in the air had a speed less than when connected to the ground. The only options available to her now were to slow, and drop. Even had Coop not been reborn faster and stronger, his pre-reengineered self could have taken Sky once she left her feet.
But Sky was not an enemy. She was a friend caught up in the frenzy of battle. Instead of taking her out of the air in a manner most likely to leave her hurt and hurting, he launched himself, somersaulting above her, as she flew beneath him. He came down on his feet and ran towards AStermalanlan, who tried to raise her stick like a lance to fend him off.
He grabbed the end in his right hand, twisted it aside, and came down on the stick with the edge of his left hand, snapping the stick a third of the way down. (Thank goodness it had been a wood or breakable composite. Had it been a type of metal, he might have actually hurt himself with that move.) He front kicked his left foot into AStermalanlan’s belly, pushing any air out, forcing her to drop to her knees, and leaving her gasping for air.
Sky grabbed him from behind, by the hair, having recovered from her launch quicker than Cooper could have imagined. She was hopped on pure adrenaline, or an alien equivalent. He covered her hand with his, and pushed his hip backward until his body found hers. Then it was about balance, as he flipped her over his head, and onto her butt.
The women side-by-side and down. He grabbed them by their drenched tops, lifted both up, twisted, and threw them down again, this time onto their stomachs. On his knees between the two Fellen, he pressed, and held them face-down on the mat, both squirming. AStermalanlan was screaming, and howling, and spitting. They raked at his legs, and punched as best they could from the awkward positions. He simply held on and waited.
It was a full minute before Sky, and then her cousin, calmed down enough to realize they had been beaten. They quit striking at his legs, and trying to wiggle from beneath his hands.
“On Earth,” he told them, “the contest ends when a fighter is knocked out, a referee stops the match, or an opponent taps their palm down twice on the mat to indicate they surrender.
“Neither of you are unconscious, I really do not want to keep this up until you pass out, and there is no referee. If you would please tap-out, I would appreciate it. I’m spent.”
Sky’s palm slapped the mat twice, immediately followed by her cousin. Coop let them go, and dropped his head to the mat, acting more exhausted than he truly was. There was little point in letting them, or the wildly cheering crowd, know the fight had taken less out of him than he pretended.
Again, the women surprised him. AStermalanlan rolled to her back, giggling loudly. Sky rolled to her side so she could see him eye-to-eye, as he lifted his head from the mat. “That was the second most fun workout I have had this week,” she said with a smile.
AStermalanlan sat up, sweat running off her, auburn hair pasted across her face, and tears of joy running from her eyes.
“Coop,” she said, the tilt to her head, “What’s a referee?”
Chapter 16
Once the show ended, and the entertained crew finished congratulating the fighters, Coop and the two Fellen agreed he would shower and change on Angel 7. They would return to their cabin to do the same. After having their butts handed to them, their need to act as security no longer seemed important. Pity on anyone who decided to give the human trouble on his way to or from his ship.
The solitary stroll provided time to see how bad conditions were for the people aboard ship. Despite the huge size of the Star Gazer, it was not meant to transport and support over 240,000 refugees, with pets, and even livestock.
He was surprised the gym had been left for exercise and not used as another shelter. The need to release frustrations through exercise did make sense.
If conditions did not change, pets and livestock would become food, or euthanized to save food.
He also recognized the ship operated underpowered, and power sources available strained. It explained why decks were kept cool. The Bosine took a leap of faith by following his instructions to head towards Neptune instead of returning to the wormhole gate. If Space Fleet did not come through, they would perish before they reached the eighth planet. The wormhole may hold a fate as bad. Roll of the dice, but they were betting on an unknown, unheard of race of humans willing and able to help.
Funny, but they were hoping for humanity.
Personally, Coop never felt a lot of faith in humanity, but he did believe in the avatar, Genna, and the AI that was the brains of the 109. Humanity personified by an avatar-human hybrid, and an Artificial Intelligence with a personality. The two of them had to bring the help needed to save these people.
Taking a walkabout the Star Gazer may not have been the smartest idea, but Coop needed time for thought. Walking always helped. He exited the lift on a random deck. As he walked the hallway, one less crowded than many he had been in over the last thirty hours, he spotted something familiar.
Two young Bosine, a boy and a girl, were seated on the deck, their backs against the wall, knees bent, with their heads bobbing up, and down in rhythm. As he neared them, he noticed the earpieces. Music? Looked like kids listening to music.
Stopping short of the two, he asked, “May I join you?”
Totally involved with what they listened to, until that second neither realized Cooper was in the hallway. At first, both appeared flustered, and even a bit fearful, but in true universal teenage chill, they feigned relaxed. The boy opened his palm to the floor beside him; a clear invitation.
Coop put his back against the wall and slid down, sitting by the male’s hip, giving the female the implied protection of the boy between them.
“I’m Coop, the visitor from the planet Earth,” he said as an introduction.
The body tapped his chest and said, “Rosz.” The girl leaned forward, smiled, and said, “Chaspi.”
“What were you listening to?”
Rosz held out a miniature rectangular box, similar to an old fashion flash drive. He pulled his earpiece out, and offered it to the human. Once Coop fixed the piece to his ear . . . music. An instrumental; at least he could not discern a voice. Not any instruments he could name or picture, yet it held elements of brass. Strong beat. Low bass. Almost a jazz riff.
“Cool,” he said. Unsnapping a BDU pants pocket, Coop extracted a PDS (Personal Data Storage) mini-pad. Using voice activation, he said, “Chicago Boyz, Mama Blue, play.”
The speaker on the pad was tiny, but well built. The rhythm of a five-piece band, led by an alto sax, filled the hallway. People who had been gawking at the trio from a distance, moved closer to hear the rich tones. Rosz and Chaspi rocked and head-bopped to the back-beat. “Cool,” Chaspi whispered.
Coop let the song play out and then called up a recent rock-pop number with a faster rhythm and a heavy beat. The tempo was driven by a guitar, and the girl singing had great pitch control, and loved little runs. The youngsters’ feet began tapping together, and their smiles grew into grins. Even though Coop was ninety-nine-percent sure the translator did not translate words being sung, it was apparent no translation was required. A party sound was a party sound.
Music and kids. It was oddly satisfying to discover constants existed in the universe.
When the song finished, the man from Earth pushed himself up the wall. “Is this where you guys usually hang out?”
It took a moment while they processed the question, Coop not sure if ‘guys’ or ‘hang out’ or both were the block. But Rosz got it.
“Here,” he said. “Good a place as any. Close to where we sleep, and this hallway is less crowded than a lot of others. Keeps our mothers happy, too. They do not like us wandering.”
“Deck 282, Rosz and Chaspi,” Coop said aloud. “I have this friend who is pretty good with communications devices. I’m going to see if she can fix a way we can share tunes.”
“Cool,” both kids said in uni
son, and both came to their feet, a lot more gracefully than Coop had imagined Bosine could move. “Nice to meet you, Coop,” Rosz said, and put his hand out in a fist. Damn, Coop thought. Years since it began and disappeared on Earth, and billions of miles separating cultures, alien teenagers in outer space used the fist pump!
Chapter 17
Following his shower and a change of clothing, Cooper used Angel 7’s com to contact the bridge of the Star Gazer. He asked the coms officer to pipe him through to the Fellens’ cabin.
“Yes, Coop?” Sky replied to his call.
“I’m going to stay on board Angel. I want to use my tactical systems with the data we have to create possible responses, should the Zenge arrive and engage.”
“While you work on tactics, we will thoroughly scan the Star Gazer files to see if there is anything more about the Zenge,” Sky replied. “Ancillary files about attacks, or systems going dark before the Osperantue realized the Zenge were at war may exist. We may discover a plan, or timeline, or even a method to their attacks that has not been obvious.”
Cooper agreed with both the search, and the chance of files that referred to attacks, but not specifically to the Zenge.
“If the Osperantue travel and trade as much as you say, reports, even rumors about attacks moving though the galaxy may exist. If the Fellen trade technology as much as you have indicated, similar rumors might turn up in your data bases.”
Sky agreed, saying, “The computers aboard our escape shuttle would have been synced with the main ship. We will run a search through our own files to see if anything seems related. Thank you for the idea, Coop.”
“No problem. You two search data bases, and I’ll run tactical simulations on what we already have. We can get together in the morning and compare notes.”