| |
ROWENA TELEPORTED TO THE quiet of Enclave in the wee hours of morning, still smelling of the perfumed smoke she’d gotten caught in leaving a museum in Dalmine in the north. Infuriating grounder festivals.
Every scan for orun traces had led her to documented antiquities.
She sighed and watched the sun rise, a red stain over the seawall. Heavy waves rose and slammed against the shore in an angry tattoo as if they too understood her frustration.
Silence wrapped around the forest of landing gears, punctuated only by the sound of heavy fists pummeling a sand bag in the gym.
Checking her calendar, she frowned; today was an all-crew off day. No one should have been in her gym. Confused, she crossed the courtyard to see who was putting in the extra hours. She needed the space to work without Hoshi’s interference, so whoever it was could get ready to take a beach run to cool down. The large bay door had been left open, leaving the fighter bathed in the crimson light of dawn.
The color suited him.
Hollis twisted, kicking high and sending the sand bag flying across the room. He was stripped down to training shorts, russet-red hair slick with sweat, with his shield on full war mode. Through the filters of her implant she could see it spiking and twisting like a storm, golden and opal-white tendrils writhing around him and then striking out like vipers. As he reached for another sand bag, he caught sight of her.
He turned, bag forgotten, and glared. His eyes were molten gold, the whites completely lost behind his war shield so he looked like some mythical war god. “What are you doing here?” His voice was gravely with anger, the rumbling warning of an avalanche in the mountains.
“It’s my training gym,” she said, the instinct to defend herself against his aggressive stance making her jaw tighten.
She didn’t need to check the date to know why he’d fallen back into the battle memories. The anniversary of Trace’s death was always hard. Obviously Hollis hadn’t found a pack of warmongers to pummel this time. Maybe he was finally letting the pain go.
“Get out. It’s an off day.” He turned back to the sand bag.
Rowena crossed her arms and watched him devastate another piece of training equipment. If he noticed she was still there when he took a third one, he didn’t say anything.
Or maybe not. He was going to destroy half her training equipment before he even slowed down. If she didn’t stop him, she was going to spend a week filling out requisition forms. “Wouldn’t you rather have an opponent who can hit back? Or are you feeling cowardly?”
A wave of energy flared across the warehouse, slamming into the walls with a sharp crack.
She let it fly past her, shields redirecting the energy like a stone under angry waves. This was the downside of implants. Sometimes the stored memories took over. It became impossible to separate past from present and suddenly you found yourself reliving a moment—or a war—with no escape.
Dumping the memories into permanent storage was the best solution. But for someone who had lost so much, the need to let go was constantly at war with the fear of forgetting everyone who mattered.
Hollis pivoted, shields glowing, creating a protective aura around him the same color as his eyes. “Get. Out.”
“No.”
He stalked forward, the ground shivering under every telekyen-enhanced step.
She lifted her chin. “I’m your training partner. You want to fight? Let’s fight.” It would save her gym. Besides, if he got loose in this state, she was the one the Starguard would call anyway. Carver and Marshall would only feed his rage. She could give it focus.
The air between them grew hot. That was a Silar special she hadn’t seen since the war.
“I don’t want a friendly fight.”
“Good.” She smiled. They didn’t need another training fight. She teleported a knife to her hand. “Let’s fight, Silar. Winner gets to hide a body.”
With a thought she moved herself to the large battle platform at the center of the gym and pulled her shields up, a protective net around her. The outer layer was laced with a high energy charge meant to burn or shock, depending on where her enemy was careless enough to hit. Under that she had an obscuring field, swirling like muddy water. And under that, another layer controlling the air, temperature, and cushioning her body from projectile attacks.
Hollis didn’t bother with a polite tap against her shields. He came in like a magnetic storm, slamming her defenses all at once as the platform shook under them. Phantom colors flitted across the gold of his eyes. Wherever he was, it wasn’t in the here and now.
He was lost in some war memory, buried in a place where she was an enemy.
They’d gone toe-to-toe, no-holds-barred only once during the war. She’d led a raid on the damaged Silar ship Aquila to retrieve orun, only to find Hollis there trying to bring the ship to safety with a tiny crew and pure stubbornness. He’d set off an EMP bomb to keep her from using her implant, and for six hours they’d fought, sniping at each other, beating each other back into a desperate stalemate.
This time they had shields.
He sliced at those first, cutting through her outer layer as the obsidian knife danced between his fingers. “You can run.”
She ground her teeth. “Lees don’t run.”
Hollis lashed out with a whip of energy that disrupted her diffuse second shield. He followed it with a quick punch, followed by a front kick.
Rowena dodged, then fell into the fight with a flurry of low kicks. She moved around him, trying to gauge his defenses.
Her shield flickered under a brute technological assault and she caught a low kick to her right hip. Rowena followed up with hard left kick to his ribs.
Silar raised his shield, leaving her kick bouncing off air. But it bought her space.
Growling, she attacked with her fists, punching high and low.
Nothing landed and Silar circled away, rapidly recoding his shields.
Rowena took advantage of his distraction, throwing a hard left leg kick to his lead leg. It connected and Silar stumbled down.
He teleported back to an upright position and brought out a second knife.
Pressing her lips into a grim line, Rowena pulled up another layer of shielding. If he wanted a rematch, he’d get one.
She’d been angry back then on the Aquila. Made mistakes out of fear and fury. Now, she was in control.
Her shields shimmered a deep black-green with silver streaks that flashed red when Silar probed them.
As reached he out, she sent a tendril of code that flowed back with his shield. The worm infiltrated his defenses silently as death, breaking his shields down, disrupting his rhythm.
Silar switched tactics, driving her to the corner of the platform with a series of punches.
Rowena fell back, stumbling and landing hard. She only just managed to keep a basic shield up as Silar rained down brutal punches and augmented fury on her shield.
She kicked, not something clean or graceful, but it gave her space to move again, and she scrambled to her feet.
He went for her legs, trying to knock her back down into a kill position.
There was a dirty joke there about Silars and floors, but she couldn’t find the breath for it. Sweating, she slipped from his grasp.
They circled, testing one each other, flirting with quick strikes and brute strength. When she went one way, he took the other, but they were always moving, his knives never still, always spinning.
The air grew hot again. Underfoot, the mats crinkled and smoked in the heat.
Rowena poured energy into her inner shields, letting the outer one weaken under Silar’s attack. He should have been slowing down by now. War memories rarely lasted long enough that an Elite fighter couldn’t simply wait them out.
Hollis stalked forward, pushing against her shields until—with a grimace—he stepped into them. The outer layers crackled, snapping with angry energy as they roiled together.
Fear tightened her throat. Crack my hull. :Silar?: The ping bounced off a multitude of shields.
He was going to kill her.
The ancestor’s bedamn’d bastard was really trying to kill her.
Common sense said she should teleport out. But she knew Silar. Once he locked on, he’d follow wherever she fled. They’d trade the relative safety and anonymity of the training gym for somewhere with civilians.
She had to kill him here. Or at least knock him out.
A fist broke through, knife-blades shrieking as they collided. Silar was done punching.
They broke apart, both breathing heavily. Silar’s eyes still blazed with battle fury.
Rowena circled to his right to get outside foot position, avoiding his dominant side. She had to slow the fight down, bring him back if possible.
But quickly.
Fights were meant to be short. Even with the implant there was a time limit before muscle fatigue and the heat took her down.
Silar threw a right knee, missed and stepped away.
Rowena circled to his left for a better angle and shot a hard kick to his left leg.
Silar pushed Rowena against the ropes. His knee hit her rib cage. He had mass on his side—but she had sanity.
She grappled with him, throwing a leg kick to his injured left thigh as she tore at his shields. She added an audio attack, sounds blaring all around him as she cocooned him in confusion.
Stepping back, Silar shook his head and tried to pull his shields up, but she kept them down and fired off another kick.
Silar didn’t even block. From somewhere, he pulled a reserve of power and threw up a fire shield that burned her eyes and face. Silar fire. That was a trick she’d have to learn one day.
For now, she fell back, arms blocking the light as she pulled a cold shield into place, her force of will freezing the air molecules.
Golden tongues of fire licked her shield. The knife was ripped from her grasp.
She took his metal one, shattering it with a thought, but the obsidian knife stayed. Typical. That knife was always between them, one way or another. She could hold him off for a few more minutes, but the heat was sucking the life out of her. She had to end it, quick.
Her worm found the code, and she gritted her teeth in triumph.
Taking his inner shield was child’s play; he was focused on the outer ones and let the inner shield code cycle with too many repetitions.
Leaving an opening, she pulled Silar in, teasing him closer as she ruthlessly peeled away his shields one by one.
She kicked his thigh, trying to knock him nerveless, but he held firm.
He drove his knee into her body and then latched on, falling with her and landing on top.
The black knife flashed in his hand as his eyes burned gold. He sliced down.
Rowena smiled.