by Stephan Knox
He looked her over carefully once more, as if questioning what he thought he had seen. He took hold of her chin and raised her eyes to him, confirming it. “Child, how has one so young become the host of such a Symbiotai?”
“I did not steal it.” Little Aari felt wounded by the accusation and her eyes flooded with fresh tears.
“Shhh, no of course you did not. I am just surprised the priests would attempt such a bonding for one as tiny as you,” he consoled the toddler-sized host.
“My symbi-oti was small too,” she sniffled, “Just like me. She wanted to be with me,” Little Aari sobbed, still convinced that this elder was anything but pleased with her.
He nodded while deep in thought for some time, then as if returning from a distant place, he blinked finally, and gave her a smile. “And a fine host she did pick. However, sadly, the world is no longer safe for you, little one. We must find a way to hide you. For one day, Destiny will call upon you.” ~~
RUDE WAKE UP CALL
Tannin stirred awake in his cell when the scent of anger and loathing reached his nose. He heard the man that was approaching along with his entourage of friends. “Smells like we got company coming, old man.”
Still on the floor of the cell, Tannin stretched; rolling his head and shoulders to loosen up the stiffness from sleeping on the cold floor, then doing much of the same with the rest of his body. Starting with his arms then his legs, while he recalled his earlier ideas of hanging around a campfire a better choice than this place. Then again, his campfire didn’t come equipped with a Symbiote breeder. It still struck him funny that the militia base did.
Stretching sleepy muscles to wake up for a fight, his inner senses were already crackling with the impending challenge of the approaching men. If they came to play, he wanted to be ready.
The corridor on the other side of his cell wall echoed with the noise of locks from thick steel bolts snapping open then locking back in place as the men passed through one gate then the next. The finite buzz that preceded each lock movement said they were powered and controlled from somewhere else. Three in all before his morning company arrived at the other side of his cell wall. Tannin sat up and spun around as the steel wall was initiated to open. Lo and behold, there was his good buddy, Camber, with a mended shoulder and five of his cronies.
“Rise and shine, pretty boy,” Camber sneered at Tannin, as he licked his lips nervously.
“I knew you’d miss me,” Tannin goaded him while finally getting to his feet to give the gang a good look at the size of the man they came to contend with. No sense in playing nice at this point. it was clear both in Camber’s face and the stench of deceit that wafted up around him, the man had made his decision to start trouble long before they came. The hunter’s body reeked of the odour caused by his lowly intentions. And Tannin took pleasure for himself as several of the men with Camber swallowed hard, their eyes floating up while Tannin stood to his full height.
Camber’s glare tightened. “Oh, I did, and now my guys and I are gonna show you what we think about your kind in these parts.”
Tannin offered up a loathing quirk of a grin. “Shall I take notes?”
“Cute,” Camber sneered back.
Camber was just too easy to bait. “Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m not that easy.”
Camber tapped something on the wall just to the left of Tannin’s cell. A simple code consisting of only three tones that would be easy enough to mimic. And with the minimum-security code entered, the mechanism that controlled the cell bars engaged, and his bars withdrew in the same manner as the steel wall of his cell did on the previous visit. The men, six in all, stepped in and spread out. Each one taking a stance that was pure challenge to Tannin’s predatory instincts. He surveyed them one at a time with a quick once over, determining who needed to be taken out of the equation at the start of the match, and who posed the least amount of threat. One of those from the start of his analysis was of course Camber, who despite his support team was holding back a step. Tannin decided he’d save him for last.
The heavier set guy with scruffy red hair and a matching beard looked as though he could be unbalanced easily, sufficing to keep him off the playing field long enough to take care of the others. The sinister looking blond, with beefy cannons for arms standing fourth in line, looked like he knew how to box. Tannin marked him to be the first to go down and stay there. He gauged the others. The youngest was hardly more than a kid; it would be a shame to waste his fate so early in his life. Better to show him the woes of his ways now, while there was still a chance for him to learn a lesson or two of who to follow and who not.
The tall, dark-haired grizzly of a man— he was trouble no matter where he went. Tannin could see it in the man’s eyes, far worse than Camber, and it came as no surprise that he, too, wore the Guillotine emblem on his jacket. The man had a soul fouled with hate. Like the blond, he too would have to be removed permanently from the equation. The last guy to consider was older, perhaps pushing his late fifties, and not looking as though he came on his own volition. Tannin would spare him, if possible— him and the boy; the others were expendable.
Tannin took a step back and spread his stance. He hunched over a bit, rolling his head like a bear ready to spar, then he gave the men a crook of his finger. “Let’s dance.” Even the words resonated like a wild animal, ripe with the thrill for battle.
The boy was the first to prove his eagerness and foolishly, he also made himself the first pawn of the game. Tannin quickly caught him as he came charging, snaring young man up by his shirt and his genitals, then lifted the boy off his feet, and tossed him overhead into the far back wall.
Without hesitation, Tannin immediately stepped for the blond, delivered a hard blow to the pit of his solar plexus, causing the blond to double over. Tannin locked his muscular arms over the man’s head and with a hard jerk, he twisted it around backwards, then released the blond fighter’s lifeless body to crumple to the floor. One down, one to go.
Tannin sensed the others closing in fast. He stepped back, bringing his elbow up and behind, landing a hard blow in the heavy-red-headed man’s face, crushing his nose with a loud crack of bone and cartilage. Another safely knocked out of play. Freeing Tannin up to target the next threat in line. He reached for Camber, keen on making sure this one was limping when he left this cell. The Guillotine Hunter was a sorry excuse for a soldier, but it was something far worse to come looking for trouble when he didn’t even have the gonads to fight his own fight. Instead, Camber had to convince others to do the fighting for him. This was how the hunter made himself seem brutish and imposing to those he could bully into submission. Tannin wasn’t the sort to submit. Not to an army of men and certainly not to the likes of an enemy such as Camber.
Sadly, Camber’s posse would pay the price by association. Nevertheless, Tannin would see to it the slime also paid, but not with his life. Instead, Tannin planned to leave the Guillotine Hunter alive, so he would have to live with the responsibility of what was about to happen to the others because of him.
Catching the sniveling man by the arm, with a twist, Tannin dislocated his shoulder— again. And just like before, Camber was howling like a beast in the night.
The dark, hairy brute of the pack caught Tannin from behind, trying to wrangle him into a shoulder lock. Tannin used the brute’s hold as leverage and he kicked his legs up and out. His boots landing squarely on the chest before him, sending Camber stumbling backwards, out into the corridor. Tannin dropped back to his feet and followed the flowing shift of weight to twist their positions in relation to each other, pulling the brute off balance. After some grappling and wrangling, Tannin managed to get his second mark in a headlock and catapulted them both towards the back wall, towards the lavatory bowl. The man growled and cursed seeing his own demise coming for him. But those curses fell silent when his head split open in a spray of blood and brain tissue over the steel rim of the piss pot.
The rev
ived boy was suddenly on Tannin’s back, but he was the least of Tannin’s worries when he heard the charge on a pulse rifle powering up. Tannin jumped, carrying both himself and the boy from the gun’s target just as the pulse was fired off. The boy cursed a name at the scruffy redhead who’d just shot at them. Tannin sent his elbow plowing back several times, knocking the wind from the boy and cracking ribs with each blow, then he shoved the boy to get him off the playing field once more. With a gun added to the scenario, the fate of the men was rewritten. More than the two Tannin had originally marked was going to end up dying. Though, he still wanted to spare the youngest and the oldest.
He charged the heavy-set redhead, grabbing the wrist that wielded the gun. With a crushing grip, Tannin snapped the bones of the redhead’s wrist, twisted the man’s hand around backwards while still holding the gun, and then forced his finger to pull the trigger several times. The first in the man’s belly, another in his groin, the thigh, and the last through the man’s foot, taking most of the boot and the toes that had been in it, off.
Tannin then spun about, bringing the gun directly on the boy, freezing him in his foolish third attempt. “Take your friend off the floor and go find your lieutenant. Do as I say, and you may yet live to see another day to ponder your future.”
“He’s dead, why should I bother?” the boy protested.
“He is still breathing. Go now. The fun is over.”
The boy glanced to the older man, who’d never made a move from the wall, then to Camber who was doing little more than fuming while he kept out of the line of fire in the corridor, and then looked back to Tannin still holding the gun. The boy took a cautious side step then another, inching his way around to the wounded man on the floor. He waved the older man over to help and together they dragged the redhead out of the cell. The older one hit the control panel on the wall and the steel wall began to lower.
“Don’t forget to come back for Camber,” Tannin smirked at the two.
“What do you mean?” The older man questioned. But no sooner the question was asked, Tannin fired the pulse gun, taking Camber’s knee out. Satisfied, his played final move of the game, nd he smashed the gun against the rails, rendering it useless. He let the pieces fall to the floor before stepping back into his cell just as the solid steel wall came down.
Tap-Tap-Tap
Aari blinked awake to a rapping against the side of her scamper. She twisted upward, keeping her blanket wrapped around her as she reached over, and unlatched the side door.
It quickly opened without further invitation and Lieutenant Commander Gage poked his head in, “We’ve been looking for you,” with a heavy amount of frustration.
Aari took that as an immediate call to stand at attention. She squirmed out, blanket-n-all, and quickly got to her feet, blinking several times before finally looking up at the tall man, who was looking none too pleased, and not fully in uniform either. It was a clear indication that he, too, had been rousted from his quarters ahead of personal scheduling. A good sign for her part as it allowed some discrepancy that at least some of his frustration wasn’t due to her unofficial sleeping arrangement.
“It seems we had some trouble with the new prisoner last night and I need you to get your scamper hot on the double, you got an immediate medevac run, Gunner.”
Aari felt the slight skip in her heart beat at the news. Not to mention, the first part of his news actually had her swallowing down large gulps of nervousness that perhaps she’d been found out, but that quickly dispelled into concern for another. Not even a fortnight and the prisoner had been made a doomed target.
“Are they bringing the prisoner out now, sir?” She kept her voice low so as not to show any true concern. Perhaps this would be an easy way to fulfill the request she’d been given. She could set the man loose somewhere along the way to the med-center, some three days travel from here. That is if there was anything left of him to turn loose.
“Not the prisoner. He’s looking happy as a loon in there. No, it’s that drenn Camber and his cronies,” Lt. Cdr. Gage groaned, “What’s left of them, that is. Transporter Lexter will be—”
They both turned when the racket of a gurney banging against the double doors at the rear of the hangar interrupted the orders being given her. A team of medics, from the infirmary, rolled in one of the wounded men Aari would be transporting. Behind them was Camber being wheeled over in a wheelchair. A third, very young and walking painfully with his arms clutching at his rib cage with each step brought up the rear.
Aari couldn’t help but be reminded of the sight of the prisoner when he had been brought in, and the condition the men of the Gamma-squadron-9 had looked. Even seeing them with her own two eyes, it had seemed unbelievable that one man could do so much damage, yet here, the same scenario rang out. The prisoner with blue eyes won again. How odd then that if he could wipe out a herd of men, that he was captured in the first place? Had he suffered a gunshot wound, it might have made sense, but he came in without a scratch on him. Perhaps there was a little more to him than being just another man.
Aari watched as the wounded men were loaded into her scamper; all but Camber who thought it was his personal mission to make a final report to Lt. Cdr. Gage.
“Sir, I personally request that the prisoner be disposed of with immediate action. He is armed and dangerous,” Camber’s insistent order contained far more bark than was ever tolerated from the Lt. Commander.
“Funny you should say that, as I’m highly drenn certain the prisoner was not armed until you and your goons entered the cell with the intent to harm. For that, you will do yourself well to keep your yap shut for now.”
“Sir, my actions were purely in self-defense.”
“One more traducement from you, Camber, and I’ll lock you in the brig. You hear me?” The commander’s face heated up into a hot glare of rage that attempted to burst through the veins in his neck, making it clear to everyone— except perhaps Camber— that no amount of excuses was going to yield forgiveness for the incident.
Camber’s face twitched, feeling every bit as if he’d been rubbed the wrong way, but even as he bit out the appropriate submissive response, his eyes darted towards Aari as if daring her to say anything about it. “Aye, sir,” he answered loathsomely.
Lieut. Commander Gage glanced down at Aari, “If he gives you any shit, just shoot him, and dump the body somewhere.” He turned to stomp off, “And don’t bother reporting it to me, either. I don’t want to know,” he called over his shoulder as he departed.
Aari gave Camber a sided glance. It was no sweat off her back to even consider such a deed, she didn’t much like Camber anyway. He was a bully who wouldn’t think twice about jumping a girl half his size to make himself seem tougher; or in this case, jumping a prisoner six to one. Thus, the sooner the likes of a man like him was disposed of, the better the peace would be around here. The real puzzle though was why the man in lock-up allowed Camber to live at all. Still, not bad for a man in a ten by ten cell with no weapon of any kind. Six men went in, four dragged themselves out.
As Aari, and her appointed shotgun driver, Lexter, made the trek to the med-field, the wounded attacker who suffered the pulse blasts from his own gun, died along the way. Baker, the youngest who’d been spared in the group, had three broken ribs, and still never stopped talking about the man in lock down, or how he’d kicked all their asses as if the prisoner was the latest hero tale from the battlefield. Baker was clearly taken up with the tall fighter.
Outside of annoying, it didn’t really much matter, there was nothing else along their trip to see anyway. Nothing but dismal wasteland. Dusty, flat roads ran parallel with the mountain ridge, and a few hollowed-out shells of buildings of every size that had once flourished as one thing or another during the old-world times. Mostly everything had long since been stripped of its resources to suit a survivor’s needs. What was left abandoned to erode away at the discretion of wind, sand, and the occasional rain.
As Aari drove them through the wasteland, her thoughts tilted with concern for the man still back in Isolation cell-15— despite Baker’s story of him being some super fighter. Primarily because the base wasn’t known for keeping anyone long term and now with several Skaddary dead at the hands of the man, he was as good as pegged for execution before she could get back to help him escape.
With the wounded dropped off, the return trip was just as uneventful until day two when Aari and Lexter came across a wrecked transport scamper along the side of the road, finding it turned over on its roof. It was Lancey’s, another transport gunner like her.
“Shit. What the drenn do you think happened here?” Lexter asked with no particular expectation that Aari knew more than he did, but he had a habit of always asking the obvious or saying equally mundane things.
Aari pulled her scamper over and got out to check for survivors. Lexter was right behind her.
“You see any signs of an attack? Maybe some of Jazirian’s men? Or bandits like that guy they brought in the other day?” More questions she didn’t have answers for.
Aari only shook her head, but when she managed to pry the driver’s side door open, Lancey’s body fell out with his head facing the wrong direction.
Further inspection of the upside-down scamper showed the holding cage in the back had been ripped out as if a wild beast had been held in it and broke free.
Lexter wandered off down the road while Aari was still checking the wreckage for any clues to what had happened.
“Hey!” Lexter shouted to her.