They were on top. Plans had been made, and roles decided. And there had been no reaction to her presence by the Exile. Saketa found herself a mess of conflicting emotions. There was still the chance that this was all a misguided waste of precious time. But on the other hand there was the prospect of actually facing him, her with her own allies and he with his. Neither was a good thought.
But here she was, and for the moment she was needed, so she fought her feelings and sought focus.
The hatch wasn’t large enough to take a full-sized interstellar cargo container, but plenty big enough for a group of people to hop down all at once. It was also quite sturdy, and the only sounds that passed through it was a faint bass. The Purists were entertaining themselves, it seemed.
Saketa drew the sword and closed her eyes. She pretended for a moment that it was her true one, closed her eyes, and aimed her mind downwards.
“Here I go,” she said to the others, then Shifted.
She emerged amidst stacks of sturdy crates in a dimly-lit room, and immediately on her right was a man with his mouth open in shock. She launched a kick into his gut, which caught him completely off-guard and sent him into one of the stacks, head first.
There was a yell from somewhere, but it was muffled by either a door or a thin wall. She seemed to be alone for the moment, and so she cast her gaze about in search of a button. There was precious little free space left by the four walls, and so spotting it was actually quite easy. She hurried over, and indeed it was just a simple button-press.
The mechanism was old and poorly maintained. It made a sharp grinding noise that surely carried through most of the buildings, and the yelling voice was joined by several more. The map had told her the number of doors and the location of the stairs. She hurried past the door to the landing and up to the one that led to the largest space on the upper floor aside from this one, and took up position next to it.
Chull was the first one down, and barely a second later someone rushed in through the door. Saketa brought the pommel into the back of their head and the person dropped. A weapon flew from their hand, and now Losan and Vanaka hopped down as well.
A bathroom door opened. Flying kicks weren’t usually practical, but one’s opponent's pants weren’t usually around their ankles, and so Chull landed perfectly on the man’s face and sent him into the stalls.
Losan fired his stunner into the first man Saketa had dropped, and Fredrak was the last one down; Ayna was to watch for any sudden approaches to the building.
The music blared out of the door Saketa stood by, as did most of the voices. Saketa rushed in, and from the corner of her eye she saw Chull going for another door into the same room.
The Purist cell had set up something of a party room, with a bunch of soft chairs and a table strewn with snacks and narcotics. Two already had swords in hand and a third was fumbling to pick one up off the table. One other stood on the far side of the room, and a fifth was the closest to her. That one brought something out from under their jacket. She didn’t wait to see if it was a stunner, a plasma weapon, or something more primitive. She just closed the distance with three quick steps and plunged her sword through his hand, then smashed him in the jaw before he could even scream.
Chull came through that other door and rushed the trio by the table. His fighting staff had superior reach, and coupled with amazing agility he easily got around the first man’s guard and cracked him over the head.
Saketa heard more fighting in the cargo room but left it to the other three. She joined the fighting at the table. Her chosen target was either high or panicking or both, and kicked the table up at her with a shrill roar. Her going around it bought him the moment he needed to unsheath his blade and take a proper stance. But he was a poor swordsman by what Saketa had come to consider the Yvennan standard. His missed strike left him off-balance, and she slashed him in the face. He yelped and she easily parried his panicked swing, and then Chull smashed his staff into the man’s back. The other two were already down.
“Need help by the stairs,” Fredrak said into their earpiece channel.
“Coming!” Vanaka said back.
“Two more down,” Losan announced curtly.
The one on the far side of the large room had vanished, and Saketa remembered a corridor that the darkness of the corner hid from sight. She headed into the direction of it while Chull headed for another corridor. Saketa found a slightly open door by poking her sword ahead into the gloomy corner, and used the weapon to push it all the way open. The hallway was dark, but she heard faint sounds over the booming music. She wished it had occurred to her to destroy the player in passing.
“At the stairs!” Vanaka said, and followed it immediately with a battlecry. It was followed immediately by a masculine cry of pain that penetrated the distance and the noises.
“Clearing the other rooms,” Losan said.
Saketa didn’t know what to say, so she just pushed on in silence. This hallway felt like a prime ambush location, but this part of the fighting had to be wrapped up fast. The chaff had to be gotten out of the way, in case the Exile showed his face.
She sensed movement in front of her and rushed ahead for a strike. There was a faint hiss, and a grim, harsh light formed a crescent, faintly illuminating a figure.
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The man screamed and ran at her. His long-handled axe had been fitted with a plasma edge, and it shrieked sharply as he swung it. The hallway was too narrow for dodging and so Saketa hopped back. The edge sliced through the wall in passing, like it was water.
He kept on swinging with both manic energy and some skill, denying her easy retaliation. There was no point in trying to parry; the plasma would go right through her sword. Nor could she focus for a Shift. So she hopped back, back, back down the dark hallway, as the plasma-axe spun scorching death in the air, leaving blinding afterimages on her retinas. It burned through the walls, doorways and light fittings.
As they emerged out into the party room again she saw glassy eyes sitting in a sweat-lathered face. She finally had space to move and feinted to the left. He took the bait and she darted to the right and thrust the sword out. It went through his arm, but he was too drugged-out for pain and simply turned and retaliated.
The hissing edge passed through a metal pole, and the man then chopped at it again, swinging low, to get it fully out of his way as Saketa wove around it. It bought her a tiny opening and she slashed down low herself, before he could bring the weapon about. The tip of her blade cut into his leg, but didn’t sever anything immediately vital. He still took a limping step towards her and kept on swinging, even as the leg oozed.
Serdra retreated, and his limping bought her time to gain some distance. That in turn earned her a moment to focus. She Shifted behind him. He slashed at empty air, and she slashed through ribs and spine and organs. He keeled over and landed on the dreadful weapon.
“Chull?” she said.
“Nothing here! Coming back!”
Saketa hurried for the door to the storage room. She heard another crackle of a stunner, and for a chilling split-second her mind mistook it for that other crackle. But there were also grunts of pain and sounds of impact, coming up from down below.
She entered the storage room a moment after Losan, who had traded his stunner out for twin fighting sticks. A man lay on the top of the landing, twitching and bleeding from a scalp wound. Another one lay up against the wall in the mid-landing, not visibly injured but unmoving.
“Guys, there’s one making a break for it,” Ayna announced from her perch on the roof. “Through the front door.”
The Exile wouldn’t be fleeing from seemingly ordinary foes, and so Saketa ignored it. She vaulted over the railing and landed near the bottom of the stairs. There she found a woman curled up in a whimpering ball of pain, her left arm and leg both badly broken. Fredrak stood with his cane in one hand and a stunner in the other. A man wearing a set of Pure Blood shoulder flaps came flying into view, tossed by an irresistible force. He landed by Fredrak’s feet, and the agent immediately shot him with the stunner. The man convulsed and lay still, and then got a puff from the cane straight into the face.
Vanaka came into view, and Losan hurried past Saketa to stand by his mistress’s side.
“That’s it,” Fredrak said, and gazed about with his goggles down. The Purists hadn’t bothered to insulate the interior. “No one’s left standi… oh, Chull: A man close to you is stirring.”
“Oh, is he?”
The music had stopped, presumably Chull’s doing, and so Saketa heard a faint gasp of pain carry down the stairs.
“Saketa, did you see your man in all this?” the warrior asked. “Is he here?”
“No,” she said through her teeth.
“Well, get up here. I might have a tip for you.”
She did hurry up, and so did the rest of them. Chull was working on opening one of the crates and looked up as she arrived.
“That man you killed…”
He pointed back at the party room.
“The one with the axe. Those wrappings he has around his forearms is how Purist leaders around here identify themselves.”
“I see there’s some kind of electronic setup around here,” Fredrak said, still wearing his goggles. “I’m going to check that out.”
“Might as well help with this,” Losan said, and started working on a separate crate.
“Is everyone okay?” Ayna said, leaning over the roof opening.
Vanaka said something in response, but Saketa didn’t listen. She hurried over to the axeman. His days of talking were over, but he was indeed wearing plain wrappings on his forearms. And what did leaders do? They handled plans. They communicated. They had a broader view. At least in theory.
She patted his clothes and soon found the hard casing of a personal pad. She expected it to be locked, but then she also usually expected leaders to not be drugged-out morons driven by blind hate. So she didn’t allow herself much surprise when it proved to be open.
By the time she put it into her hip bag she felt something stir within, like a spark on top of a pile of dry kindling. The end was in sight. Her long hunt… finally the tension would be released. It would end.
Saketa pressed her palm into the dead man’s still-warm blood and smeared it over the left side of her face. Then she strode back into the storage room. She felt alive. She felt keen, like a sword’s edge.
Vanaka and Losan were watching for any further trouble from down below. Fredrak and Chull had already opened several of the crates, and each one was the same.
“Weapons-grade plasma canisters,” the agent said, as he opened yet another one. “No actual weapons so far, but those can be printed at home. I know printers are hard-coded to not produce firearms, but that can be worked around.”
“Overall, yes, it looks like we saved my Tanga a whole lot of trouble,” Chull said.
He slammed a lid shut with considerable force and grinned fiercely.
“A good night’s work. I was hoping to rub the police chief’s face in all this, but since there was a fatality I suppose we better make an anonymous call.”
“Ah, guys?” Vanaka said on their channel. “There are some people gathering on the far side of this one street. It’s the direction that one runaway went into, and they don’t look happy. At all. There’s at least ten of them, and I think… yes, they are definitely gathering more people.”
Fredrak turned to Saketa.
“That computer I accessed was a bust,” he said. “Have you found anything?”
“I have,” she said. “I have the lead that I needed.”
“Then everyone has what they wanted,” Chull said. “Let’s go.”
“What… what about all this plasma?” Vanaka asked.
“The cops will be all over this place like a swarm of flies before anyone can hide all this stuff,” Chull assured her. “Now let’s go. Out the back door.”