There was more debris to see along the way, evidence of the brief but intense aerial fighting from two weeks before. Saketa quietly worried about coming across wounded who had lingered on for all this time, adding to her responsibilities in this tricky situation. But there were no cries for help, no emergency alarms and no flares. She couldn’t quite make up her mind if her relief at that was selfishness or not.
They passed through another town in the later part of the afternoon. It seemed to have been smaller than their first stop, but it was hard to tell given the sheer devastation that had rained down. She didn’t expect to find any food there, and two streams along the way had kept their bottles topped off.
A gorge cut across the plain like a scar, and while there was of course a rail bridge across it the bridge had been destroyed. Rather than add several hours to their journey by seeking a way around, they simply found a good spot to descend down the steep slope and hopped over onto the opposite slope. Saketa went first and plunged her companion blade into the dirt for a bit of a handhold, and held her other hand out to be ready to aid the girl as she landed. It proved to be unnecessary; her dancer’s grace more than sufficed to get across.
There was no town or shelter in immediate range as the sun began setting, but they could make one out in the distance and agreed to make the stretch for the sake of shelter from the night. Dark as it was when they arrived, Saketa couldn’t be sure how big the town was, but it shared the general features of their first stop.
This one was less destroyed but there had been a ground firefight. Or at least shooting. She couldn’t be sure if any actual fighting had taken place. In any event, the carnivores had already been at the bodies, so that was one less worry.
They settled on some kind of public resting house. Neither of them understood the script above the door, but the second floor had bunk beds and a cupboard containing soup packages. Vanaka plopped down her heater again and revealed that it had a little cooking function as well, and they agreed to help themselves to something warm for dinner.
It was their last communication for a while, and they simply sipped in silence. The soup packaging had only the local script on it, and Saketa found it rather exciting to test something completely unknown. She gradually leaned towards deciding her particular soup had some kind of meat at its core, with a heavy helping of sour vegetables.
Vanaka looked thoughtful, her dark eyes gazing distantly off at nothing. This didn’t seem like a time to be pushing her for conversation and Saketa just left her to it. She finished sooner, did a set of stretches and poses and finished with a meditation before lying down for the night.
Dreams being what they were, she had no measure for how much time had passed before she bolted out of the bunk. There was an engine outside.
She didn’t detect immediate danger, so whatever else this was, the town wasn’t about to be levelled as some of its neighbours had been. But surely everyone not interested in fighting, and with access to a vehicle, had long since fled to one of the larger population centres.
Vanaka had woken up as well, either at Saketa’s waking or the noise, and activated the blue light of the heater at a low setting.
“What is it?” she whispered.
Saketa put on her sword belt but left her boots where they were before silently striding over to one of the windows. There were blinds in place, but a light from outside could still frame them in its cold harshness. She signalled for Vanaka to turn the heater off and she immediately complied.
In addition to an engine, Saketa now heard wheels on the road, and voices only a moment later. The car was slowly idling through the town, and as she peeked around the blind she could make it out.
It was a big, hulking and rather ugly vehicle, probably designed with wilderness driving in mind. Armoured plating had been inelegantly added to the chassis, as had a mounted gun by the front passenger seat. Two people walked alongside the big car, while four sat inside of it. All had guns and none wore uniforms, and they overall looked like they were looking for trouble, aiming strong lights at each house they passed. As they got closer and closer, Saketa also saw that a woman in the back seat had something else that looked very much like a light caster, yet was casting nothing visible.
Unless Saketa was very mistaken it was a heat sensor; the simple, bulky kind one was likely to find on a planet like this. But crude or not, there was no reason for this resting house to be insulated against such scrutiny, and the two sources of body heat within would be spotted in seconds.
“Stay here,” she said to Vanaka as she hurried past the girl. “Lie flat on the floor, just in case.”
Moving silently on bare toes, she rushed down the stairs to the lobby and out the front door, as the car came up to the building.
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Two of the lights promptly came her way, blinding her. She sent her will out, blocking the guns from working. Someone barked something at her in the local tongue.
“I do not speak that,” Saketa replied loudly and clearly in Larin, and kept on approaching. There was more yelling and she repeated herself, and then found herself standing by one of the people walking alongside the car.
“Larin,” the man said, with a thick accent and notable distaste. “Where are you from?”
Saketa took the group in at close range. While not clad in uniforms, they were all clad in similar sturdy outfits, clearly intended for a bit of a stay outside of civilization. They looked like they’d been out and about for a while, if the stubble and untidy hair was anything to judge by. And they all looked hostile.
“I think you can tell where I am from,” Saketa replied and indicated the star on the centre of her suit’s chest.
“A Warden, out here?” the man said, getting no less hostile. “I don’t think I buy it. But you definitely aren’t from here. Not with hair like that.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Why are YOU here?” he demanded. “Why are you on our planet?”
The woman with the big sensor said something to the others as she aimed the tool at the resting house.
“Who is that with you?” the man asked, pointing at the upper floor.
“Just an ordinary person trapped here by circumstances,” Saketa replied evenly. “I am escorting her to the spaceport in the capital. I-”
“Are you?” the man asked, still hostile. “Are you? Look around you. Look at what’s happening to our planet! It’s the wider galaxy doing this. Too much influence from the void. Too many people who don’t belong. It draws trouble, all of it!”
“Please continue on your way,” Saketa said.
“Oh, no,” the man said and pointed his weapon at her. “I want that other person out here. I am going to talk to both of you and get some proper answers!”
One of the men shouted angrily towards the upper floor window.
“I say again,” Saketa replied, getting more stern. “Be on your way.”
She could tell it bothered him that his gun-toting was having no effect. She didn’t know what part these people had in this overall mess that was sweeping the planet, and she didn’t care. She had other concerns.
He tried glaring angrily into her eyes, but she simply stared back unblinkingly. It was rather interesting to watch the interplay of impotence and rage on his face, just before he snapped and lashed out with his free hand.
He was trying to grab her by the collar, but had no skill at all. Saketa did not even need to draw upon strength to turn his momentum against him and flip him to the ground.
One of the others yelled as Saketa drew her sword, and there was the useless click of a trigger. She channelled power into the sword as the rest of the guns failed to fire and swung the blade downwards, cleaving through the leader’s rifle.
She moved on the nearest woman, who backed away hurriedly, trying to figure out what was wrong with her weapon. Saketa split another gun in two, then hopped up onto the car. Using the sword like this multiple times in a row took focus, and she moved comparatively slowly. One of the passengers tried swinging an otherwise useless gun at her, but she leapt over the awkwardly delivered attack, kicked him in the face, then destroyed his weapon. Another passenger swung the mounted gun around, but had no greater luck with that weapon, and Saketa destroyed it after a single dry-click.
The driver opened the door, but Saketa hopped closer and kicked him in the upper back, sending him collapsing forward onto the road. The passenger by the big gun saw the writing on the wall and drew a knife, lunging for her back with a desperate yell. She leapt up over onto the hood and turned to face the woman as she lunged again. It was a simple matter of neatly intercepting the much smaller weapon with the tip of her own, and the woman impaled her own hand on the sword.
She screamed and fell back into a seat, and Saketa next stabbed the rifle that hung from her shoulder. The driver got up and turned his weapon her way, either in blind panic or stubborn belief in his own weapon maintenance. She just grabbed it as he uselessly abused the trigger, then banged the pommel of her sword into his jaw.
As he fell she swung around with the rifle held in one hand, and fired into the air.
“STOP!” she demanded.
She didn’t know what the five disarmed people had been meaning to do next, and they quite probably didn’t know it themselves. But they did freeze in place.
“I am leaving you the car so you can hurry away,” she said, levelling the gun at the leader. “Do so.”
She circled around the front of the car and back towards the house. The shocked, beaten and bewildered group hesitantly shuffled back into the vehicle, herded by Saketa waving the gun muzzle about.
No one spoke as they drove off. She waited until the rumble of the engine faded away, leaving only the sight of the lights. She sheathed her sword, summoned strength, and broke the rifle over her knee. Then she went back inside, finding Vanaka at the top of the stairs.
“I... I know I keep saying things like this, but you really are amazing,” the girl told her, and it was evident enough that she truly meant it.
“Were you watching?” Saketa said. “I did tell you to lie down.”
The girl sort of shrugged.
“Well... I did not.”
Saketa let it go and continued on up, taking her boots.
“We should change location. I disarmed that group, but they may have allies in the vicinity. And if they have important allies, they might even be able to arrange a guided missile.”
She put her boots on and took up her pack.
“It seems unlikely. But there is no reason to risk it. We can spend the rest of the night out in the wilderness, in some crevice or up against some rock. Our bodies will keep one another warm enough.”
Vanaka hesitated, then nodded.
“That makes sense.”