Saketa and the Muan grappled. Between her limited ability to draw on power, and that notorious Muan robustness, it was a mutually desperate struggle.

There was no room for anything clever, and barely any for technique. They just slammed each other around in the moving metal closet. Saketa’s back hit a wall, which she then kicked against in order to slam him into the opposite one. He then tried to bite her, and her evasion gave him a chance to throw her around again. This time her shoulder took the impact, and the shock through her arm gave him a chance to slip his grip all the way down to her wrist. That bulky ham of a fist closed around it and started squeezing.

She clenched, trying to save the bones from a break. She threw her other elbow at his throat, but he stopped it. She hooked at his leg, and actually managed to trip him, but it just put him up against the wall again. He pushed away from it, just as she had, and pinned her there. She pushed away again, and landed a headbutt on his face.

He butted her back, she butted him, he butted her, she slammed him back into a wall, and then tried to get her left hand on a knife in his belt. It directed his attention the right way for a moment, and she made a gamble. She let go of the sword.

It landed between them, between their moving, straining, legs. Saketa took a moment, accepted another headbutt, for the sake of precision. Then she put her foot down on the handle.

The blade tilted upwards, and sliced into his ankle.

The man was beyond pain, deep into that madness his people cultivated to skillfully, and for a couple of breaths he just sneered into her face and growled as he kept trying to break her wrist with sheer pressure and win their grapple with sheer determination.

Then the sword cut deeper, his leg lost strength, and she gained an advantage. She slammed his head full-force into a wall, then another, and the momentary stunning allowed her to grab his knife.

He was just a little bit too late to stop her from driving it down with both hands, and her empowered muscles did what the plasma hadn’t, and pierced his armour. The tip went in just below his right shoulder, but he caught her arms again before she could do any more.

The slow ascent finally ended, and the elevator door squealed open. Saketa rammed forwards, and the man’s ferocity didn’t change the fact that one of his legs wasn’t working. He landed on his back out in the hallway, and she on top of him.

She still had a grip on the knife, and now pulled it downwards, through his ribs. He stopped fighting her over it, and instead wrapped his mitts around her throat. Now that immense force was applied to her windpipe, as he tried to bring her into death with him.

It was a Muan thing. And for a moment she thought he might succeed, as she tried to clench her neck muscles against having the bone and cartilage crushed. Then, through sheer force, she ripped the knife to her right, through his heart.

Even with that, he still squeezed, still looking into her soul with that battle-madness, for another couple of seconds. Then, reluctantly, he went limp, and his grip fell away. And he was dead.

There were people in the hallway, shouted voices, and the incoming battle cries of the remaining Muan. Saketa shot herself back into the elevator and snatched her sword off the floor. Then she got up, just as more foes arrived.

This area was more well-lit, and quite a bit cleaner, than the lower decks, and so she and the man who aimed a pistol at her had a mutually perfect view. Saketa didn’t try to freeze the gun; she just advanced, and let the bolt burst against the sword blade.

His face filled with horror during the second he had left. She deflected the next bolt as well, and then reached slashing range. She cut him down, then the man behind him, and the two men behind them turned and ran.

She was on the bridge deck. Captain Qwern, or whoever he’d left in charge, was within reach. But this wasn’t quite over just yet. Because she heard him coming. The last Muan.

She had seconds, and she used them. The sword was in her hand, bound to her spirit, and even with much of her power blocked, it served her well. It brought balance, it brought focus, and steadied her breathing as best she could.

Her eyes travelled to the gun the dead crewman had dropped. But no. This was an old fight. She’d fight it the old way.

He came into view. The man with the twin blades. And in defiance of her expectations, he actually stopped. He looked at his dead comrade, face red, teeth bared, a low, slow growl deep in his throat.

Saketa held her sword at the ready.

He lifted his own blades and slowly scraped them against one another, producing a sound that echoed slightly down the hallway. Then he touched them to his own scalp, on either side of his head, and drew a bit of blood.

“By the Red Mountain, and by the Plain of Skulls,” he intoned in his language. “Death, death, death. By the Fury and the Spirits. Death in this moment. A death of warriors. The worthy, screaming end.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He ended it with a quick snarl, and a flash of his blades.

“To the end, Warden of Kalero. No quarter.”

“To the end,” she replied.

And he charged.

There was room in the hallway for her to swing her sword, but he still benefited from his shorter weapons. He was a superlative warrior, even through the recklessness of his rage. He jabbed, slashed, stabbed and chopped, endlessly, incessantly, at a pace that would have exhausted most people in moments. But the Muans were a hardy people. Possibly the very hardiest, while still counting as baseline human. And so wearing him down was not an option. He would get her before it got to that point. Her only option was to fight back, and fight hard.

Their blades were a cacophony, a blur that reflected the surrounding lights in a near-blinding display. She was forced to take steps back, as she sought a chance, an opening that wouldn’t just lead to a mutual kill. She landed glancing hits on his arms, but his armour saved him. She gashed his face, but he ignored it.

It was an eternity that lasted seconds, a dance on the very razor’s edge of death. All of her skill and will and power was focused into the sole task of parrying, moving and striking. There was no room for anything clever, no time for any thought, just reaction. And in the end, her body, her spirit, struck the final blow on their own.

The Muan was the first to make a mistake, and she slashed past his guard, through his head. He fell without a sound.

Saketa stood still for a few seconds, willing her body to grasp that the danger was over, and that she was alive. She checked herself for wounds, found nothing substantial, then got back to work.

And so Saketa strode into the bridge. She felt a refreshing rush of strength; the Muans hadn’t been allowed to do their runework in there, it seemed. She thought she recognised several faces from her brief, previous visit, and the bridge crew certainly recognised her. She was greeted with a mixture of yelps of fear, frozen postures, and wide eyes. She reached out with her mind and silenced any gun that might be present, and relaxed a little bit.

Saketa pointed her sword tip at the communications officer, which combined with a stern expression to freeze him in place halfway out of his chair.

“Open a video link with the Scorchspace vessel,” she ordered him.

She reached him, and gave him a light poke.

“Now.”

The little prick of pain spurred him into action, and she walked in front of the main holographic projector as he picked away at his controls.

An image came to life, of a bridge not too dissimilar to this one, occupied with rough-looking people. Someone Saketa took to be the first officer, considering his markings, had his mouth open to say something, but stopped as he noticed Saketa.

She ran her fingers along the flat of her blade, collecting blood, and smeared it on her own face. And she gave the man her very fiercest look.

“Leave. Or you will have me to deal with.”

# # #

The fourth shot from the anti-air cannon did the trick.

Zamm watched as the raider ship ruptured, suffered an internal explosion, and lost power.

Rather than any sort of dramatic spin out, the thing simply dropped straight down, and landed with a booming crash. Zamm took cover behind the base of the cannon as the sand cloud caused by the landing dissipated.

As he looked out, the ship was cracked in two, and being devoured by its own stores of plasma. If there was anyone at all still alive in there, then they wouldn’t be a problem. And neither would anyone else, it seemed.

He took another careful look around the battlefield, but it looked like he really had killed all of them. But he couldn’t shoot it out with two orbiting ships. So instead he accessed the bike’s comm setup, more powerful than his handheld one, and called Lesi.

“I’m done on my end,” he heard himself say, through the still-present haze of battle. “What about you two girls?”

He heard, very faintly, his sister’s sigh of relief before she spoke.

“The Scorchspace ship just peeled off. It looks like they’re headed for the lane that brought them here. Back home.”

Zamm felt the first hint of his mind and body unclenching.

“Good. Goody. And S-”

“Hold on, Saketa is calling in. Yes, she has control of the freighter. She says… she says there was an unexpected problem. Some weirdness about ancient rivalries, whatever that means. Yes, I know you can hear me, girl. Anyway, it looks like…”

He heard another equally faint sigh.

“It looks like we’ve won.”

“Good.”

Now it was his turn to sigh, and he didn’t try to suppress it.

“Get down here, won’t you? There’s still work to do.”

“I don’t know. I think I might just leave you.”

She cut the call, and he smiled.

Zamm allowed himself a couple of deep breaths, savouring victory and being alive. But then he got moving again. That container had been closed for long enough.

He slapped a breaching charge on the seam, let it do its work, and then flung the doors open with all his strength.

The dirty, bedraggled, people inside, over a hundred of them, saw sunlight for the first time since the raid. He couldn’t put himself in their shoes, and his mind shied away from even trying. But it was over.

“You’re free,” he said gently, and gestured out onto the sands. “You’re free, and we’ll get you back to your homes.”

After a brief hesitation, one of the women got moving, launching herself at the opening like a drowning person swimming to the surface. That started the flood, and the farm villagers burst out. Zamm stepped aside in order to not get trampled.

Some of them staggered and fell after a short distance, or fell to their knees, simply to be happy to be out of that windowless metal box. Others kept on moving, as if unleashing all the movement they had been denied for so long. Some cried, others prayed, some gasped and some were simply silent. It was, overall, both moving and heartbreaking.

But they were free. They were free, and they could get back to their lives.

Zamm bowed his head a little and smiled, through heartbreak and exhaustion.

It felt good to make a difference.