When Jack and Angela first met S'haar, they witnessed the gap between human and argu'n physiologies. Both realized standard human armaments might not have enough stopping power. Instead, they decided to use bullets with a hardened steel tip with a high explosive core. In theory, it should have more than enough force to crack an argu'n's armor plating and cause significant damage to the flesh underneath.
As Jack watched the fight between S'haar and Dol'jin, he wished Angela and himself had gotten in more practical testing against ballistic dummies. Now he just had to hope that what little testing they had done would prove sufficient.
Looking down, Jack noticed his hands were shaking again, worse than they had before. He tried to will them to be still, force them to be calm, but that seemed only to make the shaking worse.
That was when, Dol'jin scored a glancing blow against S'haar's shoulder, causing her to drop her sword. Jack started to raise the gun, but before he could get a shot, S'haar leaped onto the giant, burying her teeth into his neck. Jack lowered the gun again, telling himself he needed to trust S'haar more. After all, if she couldn't hold her own in this and the coming fight, they were both already dead.
Looking back at the crowd of watching argu'n, Jack was doing math and not liking the result. Ideally, once he started taking shots, many of the hill people would break and run, but based on what he knew of argu'n, their fight or flight response was weighted heavily toward fight.
Jack counted 23 argu'n in the camp. Even if S'haar was able to take out four or five after her fight with the club-wielding maniac, there would still be way more raiders than the 10 bullets Jack had in his magazine. That meant he'd have to stop and reload while being charged by several eight-foot-tall monsters that could move faster and leap further than any living human. No matter how he looked at it, there was no way he could think of that he could kill all of them before they reached him, and his time was running out.
Dol'jin looked as though he was about to make one last desperate gambit. Jack had to hope S'haar was ready and able to deal with whatever it was. For the last time, Jack checked the safety on his gun; the end was rapidly approaching.
Jack's stopped breathing when he saw the trap Dol'jin had laid for S'haar. After throwing his club, he rushed in while she was still prone, hoping to take advantage of his greater strength. However, S'haar proved herself more than worthy of Jack's trust. As she fell onto her back, S'haar placed a hand beneath her, appearing to slow her fall, but her real goal was the blade she had dropped earlier. S'haar pulled out the short sword and impaled the flying Dol'jin before he had any chance to react, ending his life, and thus the fight.
Everything seemed to slow down at that moment. As S'haar stood, Jack raised the gun and half aimed it toward the watching argu'n. He waited until the first one started to rise, then sighted along the barrel into the center mass of the lead argu'n and pulled the trigger. The result was everything Jack could have hoped for and utterly horrific. Jack clamped down on that second observation and locked it away to be dealt with when he and S'haar weren't fighting for their lives.
Jack aimed the gun at the next closest argu'n and pulled the trigger a second time. As that raider's chest turned to ruin, the spell that held everyone silent ended. Everything exploded into action.
A couple of argu'n turned and ran, but not nearly as many as Jack had hoped. The rest split into three groups. About half the original group ran right up the middle, toward where S'haar stood between the camp and Jack. The rest split into two groups, running to either side of S'haar, bypassing her, and heading directly for Jack.
As much as Jack wanted to fire into the group charging S'haar to save her, he knew that if he got himself overwhelmed, the argu'n that killed him would simply charge S'haar from behind, and they'd both end up dead. Instead, he had to trust S'haar again and focus on the ones coming for him. He took aim at the group to his left and opened fire.
-
S'haar saw the groups headed to flank Jack, but she knew that they'd both end up dead if she split her focus now. So, S'haar would simply have to trust Jack's earlier claim and deal with the group headed directly for her. She leaped back to the spears she'd planted into the ground. Grabbing a small spear in each hand, S'haar whipped around and used her momentum to aid in her throw as she aimed for the closest argu'n. Before the spear hit, S'haar shifted the second spear to her dominant hand and launched it at a second target.
The first spear landed dead center on a charging argu'n, piercing him through his chest plate. The raider immediately collapsed to the ground. An argu'n following the dead man got tangled in the lifeless limbs and fell as well, not out of the fight, but slowed for a few precious seconds.
The second spear didn't fly as true and hit her target lower than intended. It impaled the raider through the leg, pinning him in place. While the wound might prove fatal, it would take time, and he was already working on removing the spear to get back into the fight.
S'haar grabbed the third and longest spear and prepared to meet the raiders' charge. Behind her, S'haar heard Jack's impossibly loud weapon firing again and again as Jack faced his own desperate fight for survival.
-
One after another, Jack was able to take out the five argu'n charging from his left, but between every pull of the trigger, they seemed to close an absurd amount of ground. More ground was eaten up by the argu'n closing on his right during the agonizingly long half-second turn to target them.
There were four argu'n charging on this side, and having kept count, Jack knew he only had two shots left in the magazine and one in the chamber. With no other plan coming to him, Jack aimed and pulled the trigger again. Another argu'n fell. Their deaths were horrible, and yet they still charged.
Jack pulled the trigger once more. As the next argu'n fell, he was close enough that Jack could see the brief look of surprise on the raider's face just before the light left his eyes, and he collapsed in a boneless heap.
Suddenly the faces of every argu'n Jack had just killed filled his vision. The same look of surprise was now on all their faces as, one by one, the light left their eyes.
Shoving the unwanted vision aside, Jack aimed and fired one last time. This time his vision blurred, his arms rebelled, and his shot went wide. He'd failed. There were two argu'n left and nothing he could do. As one of the argu'n raked its claws across Jack's chest, he fell.
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As the first two argu'n reached her, S'haar cracked the butt of the spear into the face of the first, dropping him as she broke his jaw. Reversing the spear's momentum and driving it forward, she forced the second to dive away lest he get impaled. Spinning the spear in a full arch, she copied a move from Dol'jin by losing her grip just enough to extend the spear a few inches, raking it across the throat of the third assailant that was trying to sneak into her blind spot.
S'haar fell back a few paces, working her spear into a pattern designed to buy herself a moment while assessing her options. Of her nine assailants, two were dead, one unconscious, two slowed and out of the fight for three to five seconds respectively. She needed to thin the group a bit more before the last two arrived. Otherwise, she'd be quickly overwhelmed.
Absorbing the momentum of her backward movement, S'haar braced and launched herself forward once more. She put her full weight behind the spear and drove it into the centermost assailant.
S'haar released the spear. Rather than wasting precious seconds wrenching the weapon free, she pushed off of her victim's body and launched herself at her next target. She collided with him and latched onto his throat as she had Dol'jin's. As the two tumbled together, they fell right in the middle of the four remaining argu'n.
As the last four combatants closed around her, S'haar was out of weapons and out of breath.
-
As Jack landed on the ground, he silently thanked Angela for the armor plates she'd weaved into his coat. The argu'n who had taken a swipe at him had chipped and broke several claws on the armor.
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Jack knew it wouldn't buy him much time, so he had to act fast. Drawing his knife, Jack buried it to the hilt into the foot of the argu'n standing over him, pinning the raider to the ground.
Rolling away, Jack regained his feet just in time to jump to the side as the second argu'n leaped forward. All Jack could do was take advantage of his lighter build to repeatedly crawl, jump, and dive just out of the raider's encroaching reach. As he fell for what seemed the dozenth time, Jack fumbled with his gun, trying to load his last magazine, only to drop it instead when he had to make a last-ditch attempt to avoid another downward swipe of the claws.
Scrabbling on all fours, Jack continued lurching and crawling away. The argu'n, sensing an end to the chase, approached at a deceptively leisurely pace. As his hand shot forward to grab Jack by the throat, Jack threw a handful of dirt and sand into the raider's eyes.
Taking advantage of his opponent's momentary blindness, Jack dove behind him, picking up the magazine from the ground as he passed. Slamming the magazine into place, Jack racked the slide and aimed at the back of the argu'n that was busy clearing his vision.
However, before he could pull the trigger, the gun was ripped out of his hands. The first argu'n stood over him, holding Jack's bloody knife in one hand and his gun in the other. Jack froze as his mind tried vainly to think of something new. He was out of weapons, out of ideas, and out of hope.
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As S'haar looked around at her plight, she noticed the argu'n sneaking up unseen behind Jack as the human fumbled with his weapon. Knowing she only had seconds before she was finally overwhelmed, S'haar gathered what little energy remained and leaped at the argu'n whose leg she'd impaled.
Seeing her coming, he readied the very spear S'haar had used to impale him. S'haar twisted in mid-air to the best of her ability, but he still successfully drove the spear through her left shoulder. Rather than pull away, S'haar gripped his arms and pulled herself closer, driving the spear's shaft further through her shoulder. Realizing what was about to happen, the argu'n now fought to push S'haar away, but either due to his blood loss or S'haar's greater desperation, she was able to reach him and tear out his throat with her teeth.
Her body was near-total failure, and her vision was blurring as S'haar tore the spear from her shoulder and threw it with the last of her strength. Her final task complete, S'haar collapsed to the ground. She wasn't even able to see if she'd hit her target.
-
Jack's mind was running a mile a minute, but every possible action he could think of ended with his death. The argu'n standing over him licked its own blood off the blade before laughing as the raider shifted his grip to deliver a final downward thrust.
As the argu'n drew its arm back, Jack closed his eyes and accepted the fact that he'd done all he could. Jack's first thought was that his biggest regret was leaving Angela behind. Jack believed that this was the only choice he could have lived with, but he wished there was some way to let Angela know what happened.
Jack's second thought was, Why am I still alive? Opening his eyes, Jack saw the argu'n standing over him looking stupidly down at its chest, obviously wondering how a spear had come to be sticking out him.
Realizing he'd wasted a precious second in self-indulgent thoughts, Jack leaped to his feet, taking his gun back from the collapsing argu'n. Turning, Jack saw S'haar had collapsed to the ground with three more argu'n closing in for the kill. Jack shot two in the back before the third took off running.
Jack turned again and sighted down his gun at the last argu'n, who's eyes were finally cleared. The argu'n knew his time had come, and he stood straight, staring Jack in the face while waiting for death.
Jack found that he couldn't pull the trigger. Instead, he dropped his aim from his target's face to his chest, looked him in the eyes, and shouted a command. "Run!"
The argu'n twitched but stayed still. Jack shifted the gun further to point next to the raider's feet. He fired a shot into the ground before raising the gun again, his warning clear. Run or die.
He stood ready to shoot if the argu'n decided to attack, but something of his intent must have bridged the gap. At first, the argu'n backed away wearily, keeping both eyes on Jack. As enough distance opened between them, Jack relaxed his aim a little more, and eventually, the argu'n turned and ran.
Jack stood there, frozen in place as he watched the last of the hill people disappear into the distance. His mind was numb. A part of him knew he and S'haar needed to get help, but that part seemed to be shouting at him from a great distance.
Eventually, Jack lost sight of the raider. Looking down at the gun in his hands, Jack was overcome by waves of nausea and revulsion by the sight of the monstrous thing. He threw it as far away from himself as possible.
The distant part of his mind told him that he needed to keep the gun close in case there were more of the hill people nearby, but Jack could barely hear the voice anymore.
Despite the pleasant warmth of the day, Jack suddenly felt intensely cold. Every inch of his body was violently shivering. Before long, he collapsed into convulsions and vomited into a nearby bush. Jack continued dry heaving long after his stomach had utterly emptied itself. It was as though his entire body was rebelling at what he'd done.
Jack wasn't sure when it had appeared, but there was a presence sitting beside him and a calming hand on his back. Looking up through the tears that clouded his vision as he wiped the bile from the corner of his mouth, Jack saw S'haar sitting beside him. She looked worse than he'd ever seen, one arm hung limp at her side, and she seemed to have a cloth wedged into a deep wound to staunch the bleeding.
Looking S'haar in the eyes, Jack broke the silence with a sad smile and a pathetic laugh. "I bet none of the men of your village would react this way to what we just did."
To his surprise, S'haar's eyes were not filled with mockery or even the pity Jack had feared. Instead, her tired smile spoke of understanding and maybe even a little respect. "If you'd reacted the way the males of my village would have, I would have taken the girl and left. You would have never seen me again. Instead, I am here beside you."
Jack noticed his gun sitting beside S'haar. Following his glance, S'haar reached down, picked up the gun, and held it for a moment. "This wasn't some honorable combat to be bragged about around a fire. This was a brutal act of violence and survival."
S'haar held the gun out to Jack, who, in turn, was unwilling to touch it. S'haar continued. "But remember, you weren't the one that decided to raid and murder a family, and you weren't the one that enslaved a child. You did what you needed to do, and in my opinion, you did well."
S'haar placed the gun in Jack's unwilling hands. "It's best if you don't leave this out where anyone can find it."
Jack nodded and reluctantly holstered the gun. As he did so, S'haar stood and offered him a hand. As she lifted Jack to his feet, S'haar reminded him why they had done all this. "Now, there's a young girl down there we need to set free. Stay near me in case any of the hill people return. Neither of us is in any condition to fight anyone alone."
-
As the two walked through the camp, Jack noticed the signs of ruined lives in the form of things that didn't belong. A finely crafted stein, a beautiful rug, even a child's doll. Jack knelt before the toy, wondering if it belonged to the girl they'd for, or if it belonged to someone else they'd arrived too late to save. Lost in thought, Jack picked it up before following S'haar to a tent.
Inside the tent was the battered and bruised child. When she looked up at them, it was with eyes resigned to a horrible fate. She didn't even flinch as S'haar worked to remove bindings that had been tied so tight that they cut into her skin. The whole time S'haar spoke soothing words while Jack stood off to the side. "It's ok. You're safe now. They won't hurt you anymore. We're going to take you away from here." On and on, she spoke, using her voice to try and soothe the child.
Looking more closely at the girl, Jack could see the girl only came up to his chin. She wasn't as young as he'd first thought. She might have been the rough equivalent of 14 or 15, though he couldn't be sure.
Once she was free, the girl simply stood in place, looking at S'haar as if waiting to be told what to do. Looking at Jack and seeing he was as lost as she was, S'haar decided to lead the girl outside.
Once outside, the girl shielded her eyes against the glare of the midday sun. She seemed to be standing in place again. That was when Jack noticed she was staring at a body. The body of the first argu'n Jack had shot.
Slowly the girl turned around until she was looking at S'haar. She pointed at the body and spoke for the first time. "Did you do this?"
S'haar looked at the body, then to Jack, then at the girl. "No, I did not."
The girl turned to face Jack this time and repeated her question. "Did you do this?"
In a few seconds, Jack thought of a dozen comforting lies and a hundred justifications. Instead, he simply nodded his head, yes.
With a blur of speed, neither of them thought she was capable of, the girl launched herself at Jack. Her arms stretched wide and claws ready to attack.
Jack had just enough time to wonder dumbly if the body was someone the girl had known, and then she was on him. She tackled Jack with enough force to launch him off his feet. The girl's vice-like grip was strong enough to crack a rib. As he fell to the ground, Jack found he didn't have the heart to defend himself.
Jack was lying on the ground for several moments before noticing the girl wasn't attacking. She was sobbing. Her head was buried in his chest, and she was whispering two words over and over. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Jack had never been comfortable with physical contact, but the girl's desperation called out to an old pain of his own. He sat up, wrapped her in his arms, and held her while the girl continued to sob. S'haar knelt beside the pair and put a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. The three of them stayed like that until the girl cried herself dry.