It was rather fun; something of a touch of normalcy. Saketa hadn’t actually done harmless sparring in quite a while, and for a moment the familiar feel of a sparring floor brought back happier times. It helped that the woman, Chima, was a great opponent; fast, strong, and fearless. Since Saketa wasn’t drawing on power it was nearly an even match, but after a while Chima had to concede.

“Let’s save that energy for actually breaking faces,” she said, as some sort of overseer just outside of the floor declared the match formally over.

“Yes, we should,” Saketa agreed.

She held out her hand to help Chima up off the floor, and the woman accepted it. She took a moment to wipe sweat from her brow, then embraced Saketa.

“I appreciate a loss now and then,” the Tanga warrior said into her ear. “They make me try harder. I will work on being able to best you.”

“I do not expect to stay planetside very long.”

“I better train fast, then.”

Saketa couldn’t quite tell if the woman was serious or not as they separated. But she was smiling.

They left the sparring floor. Saketa returned the borrowed handwraps. Chima retrieved her tunic, and Saketa her coat and sword belt. Saketa’s group and a couple of warriors had joined them to watch, and Saketa found herself grateful for the lack of shouting and hooting during the match. Losan caught her gaze and she took it as an invitation to get close enough for private conversation.

“You are good,” the man said. “Very good. These people are true fighters, yet you might be the best warrior under this roof.”

“I had good training,” she said reflexively.

“Good training is of little meaning without the will and drive to absorb it,” he countered. “And the strength to pay the price it demands. Vanaka has decent skill these days, but she would be better if she was a little more comfortable with violence.”

“And perhaps if her swinging at you with full strength was more advisable,” Saketa suggested.

“True, but my point stands. Are you a typical Wa… are you typical for your people?”

“No weak warrior makes it through the trials,” Saketa said.

She finished fastening the belt around herself, adjusted the knife scabbard yet again, then shrugged into the coat. As always, the material further limited her connection to the universe, and perhaps played a part in how quickly her mood shifted.

“But the fact is that I did excel,” she went on. “I did meet the difficulties with all my strength and heart, and set all else aside. That was how I outdid all of my fellow trainees.”

Her connection to those simpler times was fading fast, replaced by the present. She felt an irrational anger at the man for unwittingly triggering this, which in turn fuelled Saketa’s own disappointment in herself. As always, it was a damned vicious cycle. He seemed to sense that his attempt at conversation hadn’t gone as intended, and simply dropped the matter.

Chima headed back to the reception area, or whatever it was, and the group followed. Some more of The Circle’s people had arrived to speak with the warriors, and through a momentarily open door Saketa could see that a line had indeed formed outside.

“Ah,” Chima said as Vanaka and Chull came back down the stairs. “Are you two done talking?”

“We are,” Vanaka said, looking calm and happy.

“I believe her,” Chull said. “We probably will find weapons at that address, and that problem is best dealt with quickly.”

Saketa wondered if anyone besides herself and Losan noticed the man’s very subtle deference towards Vanaka. She allowed herself a look at the ansoti. Neither of them said anything, or made any overt expressions. But they both understood that they were sharing a secret.

The two Tanga warriors had a quick exchange in their language, and Chull then spoke to more of those nearby before switching back to Larin.

“I won’t be marshalling the Tanga,” he said. “The Purists would know something is up. Someone would see us go by and report in, and who knows what those rats would do then? Besides, the tanga needs to be ready to respond to any unexpected trouble.”

He wagged his finger.

“No. If the place were heavily defended, we would know. So instead we go in with a small team, break bones, and then evaluate the situation further.”

“If you think that is best,” Vanaka said to him.

“I do.”

“Or we could… sneak?” Ayna suggested.

“Not if they’re hiding weapons,” Chull said, and smiled grimly. “Not in my neighbourhood.”

“If my target is there, then there will be no quiet in and out,” Saketa told her, grim without the smile. “Maybe one, but not both.”

“You’re getting me kind of excited,” Chull commented.

“Don’t be,” she told him.

The warrior met her look and she let him take in the full measure of how serious she was.

“Hm. Well, do you folks want to borrow weapons, or do you have everything you need?”

# # #

Chull led them down a route he insisted was their best option, and Saketa opted to trust his judgement on that one. The warrior had strapped a sword to his waist and carried a combat staff in his hand. Just behind him in the lead were Fredrak and Ayna. He had his combat cane and she had her baton, as well as a small civilian stunner.

“I take it you will be sticking to your specialty?” Saketa asked the Dwyyk.

“Ah, yeah, I think that’s for the best,” Ayna replied, and flashed a grin that couldn’t quite cover up her nerves. “We’ll see how much poking around is required once we’re there. But I’m happy to leave smashing to other people.”

She turned to Chull.

“How many smashers do you have in that Tanga, anyway?”

“Two per person,” the man replied, and held up his fist.

He spent a moment being amused at his own joke.

“In all seriousness, we have fifty-two fighters on duty at the Tanga. The rest are spread out over The Circle in small groups. Also on duty.”

“No reserves, in case of an emergency?” Ayna asked, which Saketa worried would set off his suspicions again.

“We are facing an emergency,” he said.

Chull pointed to the swirling city of lights centred above the docking yards.

“Those will leave soon. We have maybe… what… three hours more? The Purists will have had time to work themselves into a paranoid frenzy, and once the fleet leaves maybe they will have gathered courage equal to a whole half of their numbers. I’m worried they’ll come out onto the streets as soon as it feels safe. And since they don’t know right from wrong they’ll need helpful people ready to beat it into their skulls for them.”

“It will take more than that in the long term, I’m afraid,” Fredrak said.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Will it?” the warrior replied. “Well, all that is someone else’s job. I protect my neighbourhood. That’s it.”

“There is a big fight brewing,” the agent said, and his face took on a contemplative look. “And I don’t mean Ciinto Res, or this little sideshow of a war. They’re both just symptoms.”

“You sound like a man about to get serious,” Chull said dismissively.

“He does that on occasion,” Ayna said.

“Interstellar wars have been waged for many reasons, since we rediscovered the lanes,” Fredrak went on. “It used to be for fully habitable worlds, and for control of important lanes. But the more lanes people find, the less important each one becomes. Now societies have gotten big enough and tech has developed enough to keep everyone more or less alive. The new big fight is about ideology.”

“I hesitate to call Pure Blood any kind of ideology,” Saketa told him. “It’s just an old sickness built into the human soul.”

“Oh, one could argue that,” he conceded. “Step back to take it all in and it’s just a confused mixbag of prejudice, wilful ignorance, and blaming all of one’s own problems on others…”

“Projecting their own evil outwards, rather than face it,” Saketa said.

“Exactly. The human subtypes make easy targets, because they can be pointed to as ‘other’, but then so can other cultures, and simple war refugees, and any other kind of offworld influence. It is an ‘ideology’ at war with itself, and the Hegemony exports it to sow chaos. The Kingdom offers tradition, stasis, and the short-sighted comfort of absolute authority to take responsibility off one’s own shoulders. The Holy Union offers an eternal reward in the hereafter, and the terror of eternal damnation.”

He twirled his cane a little bit.

“If mankind is to advance at all, if we’re ever to reach a brighter future, we will have to be open to new ideas. That requires human freedom, of body and mind. And the Federation is the only one of the great powers to embrace it.”

He looked towards the fleet.

“This is a proxy war, really. The Heg are hoping to gain an outpost in the Nearer Fringe. They mustn’t gain one.”

“That is a whole lot of big talk,” Chull said.

He turned around to face them, and walked backwards.

“I just want to look out for me and mine. That’s all a person is really equipped to do.”

“Two valid points…” Ayna said. “Personally, I think I’m just trying to keep life exciting.”

After a moment’s hesitation the three of them turned to Saketa.

“Am I some deciding vote here?” she asked.

“Maybe you are,” Ayna said, grinning as usual.

“Those are three valid points,” Saketa replied. “Ideally, one finds a balance between them.”

“That’s a copout!” Ayna said.

“It is the truth, as I see it.”

“Fine, fine.”

Saketa let herself drift behind, until she was walking alongside Losan and Vanaka. The former was being a proper bodyguard and staying alert. The latter was locked in a battle to keep her nerves from showing.

Saketa looked at their guide, then at the girl.

“You are insidiously useful,” she said in a voice that wouldn’t be heard outside of a tiny radius.

“Thank you,” Vanaka said. “I am raised for this, after all. Well, sort of.”

“You aren’t planning on taking him home with you, are you?”

“Ah, no. I only just met him. Though…”

Vanaka looked Chull’s way.

“He is kind of interesting, and pleasant. But no.”

Saketa nodded.

“I stand by what I said to you just before we parted on Xivioth: I understand your need to hunt, and I am perfectly at ease with it. But I will step in if you try to make someone yours permanently against their will.”

“That’s fair,” Vanaka said, although she looked perhaps slightly miffed.

“And one bit of strong advice, for all of our sake.”

“And what is that?”

“Do not bite Fredrak. Not even once. I got to know his type in the previous war, and they like to rely on all sorts of little gadgets and tricks. He may very well have some sort of recording equipment or alarm active at all times. And your venom cannot overcome that. Best not risk it.”

“I don’t bite everyone I meet, you know.”

“Well, both our meetings so far have given me a different impression.”

The young Vylak opened her mouth in an angry O. Then she shut it and reluctantly grinned as Saketa smiled at her.

“Fair enough,” the girl said. “But I wasn’t planning on it. Thanks for the warning, though. It is good that you are alert to my realities. And that you can actually smile.”

“A little at a time,” Saketa said.

Vanaka laughed a little, but it seemed to be at something internal.

“What?”

“I simply cannot get over how strange it is to talk openly about all this to someone who isn’t in the fold. I am technically violating a major taboo. It feels so wrong, but so exciting.”

“You just described a vice. Mind this does not become one.”

“Was that another smile just now?”

“Perhaps a small one.”

Saketa had forgotten, just for a moment, what they were heading into. But reality asserted itself, and she was forced to break the suddenly pleasant atmosphere.

“What do you intend to do at that building?” she asked.

Saketa saw her own feelings play out on the girl’s face. Vanaka took a deep breath, and getting it all the way in seemed to require some effort.

“I… would offer to get information for you, from someone you don’t cut to pieces. But with three other people along that may not be realistic. And we don’t actually know what we’re heading into, do we?”

“No. We don’t.”

Saketa looked ahead. Chull was leading them into a largely unlit hanha. The path ahead was dark and unknowable. How appropriate.

Vanaka took another deep breath. This one felt more sure, and she ran both her hands down the front of her jacket and as far down her thighs as they would go without her bending over.

“I will do what I must, and what I can,” she then said. “For a little while I will be someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“A character,” Vanaka said. “I have come up with several for the stage, and… really, for existing outside of my family’s little corner of the universe. It’s part costume, part state of mind. I’ll be ready when the time comes.”

Saketa squeezed her shoulder assuringly.

Conversation died down as Chull took them through the hanha. Saketa would have worried about potential guards roaming around as they neared the building, but the darkness was Ayna’s element and she ceased all joking as it closed in on them.

It was from behind a row of ill-tended bushes that they finally had a view of it. 26 Sajakan had been a lesser industrial or commercial building of some sort. It stood two fairly tall storeys into the air and had a flat roof, and the occasional thin line of light hinted at covered windows.

Fredrak dropped his goggles down from his forehead and over his eyes.

“The wall interior has been insulated,” he then said. “I can’t see inside. This normally isn’t something to resort to if all you’re hiding is people.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have the floor plan,” Chull said.

He activated a small holo-device, and a three-dimensional image of the building’s layout came into view.

“Oh, handy,” Ayna said.

“There’s a back door in front of us, even though we can’t see it from here…”

“I can see it just fine,” Ayna interjected.

“... and I want to go through there, if possible. We had best hit hard and fast, before they can mount a proper defence. We can’t waste too much time at the door; it’ll risk them getting wise. So if it’s locked and too sturdy for us to break down within seconds I say we go for these two windows here.”

He pointed to the two on either side of the door. Each was big enough for a person to easily get through. Once the glass was dealt with.

“Hold on, what is that?” Losan asked, and put his finger on a rather large rectangle shape on the roof.

“It’s an old cargo reception hatch,” the Tanga warrior replied.

“That’s presumably how they got the contraband into the building,” Fredrak mused.

“We can attack from above,” Losan went on. “It’s perfect. It will surprise them far more than going by the door, and I see there’s only one flight of stairs leading up. It would only take one of us to hold the upper landing, while the rest finish clearing the top floor.”

“That would be effective,” Chull admitted with an air of scepticism. “But do you folks have breaching charges?”

“We don’t need them,” Saketa said. “Shouldn’t this just be a simple matter of pressing a clearly-labelled button?”

“On the inside, yes.”

Ayna grinned. Chull looked around at the group.

“I feel I am being left out of a joke,” he said.

“You are,” Vanaka said. “But don’t worry about it. Saketa can get inside and open that hatch before anyone inside can react.”

The doubt survived on his face for a second or so, then faded away before her reassuring look.

“If you say so,” he said.

He turned to the building.

“Is everyone up for climbing to the roof? Silently?”

“My body is a weapon,” Losan said.

“I’ll get up there, don’t worry,” Fredrak said.

“Doesn’t take much strength to move this frame around,” Ayna said,

“I’ll be fine,” Vanaka said.

“As will I,” Saketa said. “But heed me, all of you…”

She looked into every set of eyes, to be sure that she was indeed being heeded.

“My target, who among other names calls himself Avanon, wears dark-brown, lightweight armour, and often adorns himself with a cape or some other way of looking striking. And he attacks with crackling tendrils of energy. If he is in there, fall back, and let me face him. I know each of you are capable in your own different ways, but I know how to fight him. I know what to expect. Leave him to me.”