Ok, a short but intense one, this chapter. More action from my very own independent woman though. Gotta' love a strong girl, right? Enjoy!
The look on Karidi's face as she and her men had pulled up by the metalhead had been just about priceless.
Especially after she realised that Jak hadn't fired one single shot at the monster.
The overturned car was a pointer for this one.
"I'm not even going to ask how you did it, just make sure you don't do it too often, ya' hear?" she told Jak as he climbed into the car after they'd managed to turn it right side up.
Jak didn't say anything about this.
There was no need for making her worry about him turning dark whenever she wasn't looking.
If she didn't ask, he wouldn't tell.
They'd gotten the coordinates for the meeting spot over the com and were now heading over there; four cars racing at high speed across the dunes.
Jak couldn't help but feeling a bit exhausted.
He had a hard time of not making it show just how much he'd been affected by the encounter with the metalhead.
The hands on the wheel were shaking slightly and his head felt heavy.
Jak was tired and drained of not only eco, but energy as well. Driving the car was taking a risk, considering his constant need to close his eyes. He was glad to have the goggles down over his eyes, or else someone might have noticed his weariness as they drove by him.
They drove fast enough to stir up a thick cloud of sand dust floating up into the air behind the cars and for each dune they climbed the cars were sent off flying away from it as they left it, engines roaring and wheels spinning.
About one hour later Karidi gave signal to stop and Jak stepped down hard on the brake, causing the car to slide in a spin before it finally stopped just about one meter away from where Karidi's car was standing.
The woman stared at him as if he was crazy and Jak couldn't help but to smile behind his scarf.
"If you're trying to kill yourself, please do so without endangering the rest of us!" the man in Karidi's passenger seat yelled out at him.
Jak shrugged at the comment and pulled down the scarf before he placed the goggles back upon his head.
"Sorry," he said with an indifferent voice and noticed how Karidi tried hard to hide an amused smile on behalf of her passenger.
As the remaining two cars pulled in around them, Karidi got out of her own car and looked around, searching for a sign that would tell them whether or not they were being tricked into a trap.
Luckily the picked spot for the meeting offered them a number of escape routes, leaving Karidi the opportunity to relax a bit.
There was an oasis some way off to the west and a collection of rocks shooting up in the air a few hundred meters to the east, but apart from this they had free sight for miles around.
"They're late," one of the men pointed out as he walked up to Karidi.
"Just wait and see, marauders have their own rules and probably their own way of counting time as well," Karidi said calmly, without even looking at him.
Jak still sat in his car, trying to not fall asleep in his seat. He rubbed his stinging eyes and tried to focus his thoughts around the mission.
Marauders hated spargans. Why would they even consider keeping one alive if they got their hands on him? Jak simply couldn't figure this riddle out. He was way too tired.
Suddenly they could all hear a number of cars coming closer, and soon enough they saw the dust cloud telling them where the marauders were.
There were three cars. As they stopped some way off, Jak could see that there were two marauders in each car and in the backseats he could make out the shapes of other passengers with their heads covered by wheat bags.
Three prisoners then. That meant they'd left two prisoners back at where ever they'd come from.
"All right, who's in charge?"
A blue haired man with pale skin had jumped out of one of the cars and was now walking slowly towards the group of assembled spargans.
Karidi took a step forward and squared her jaw.
"I am. Now what is it that you want with bringing us out here?" she said, voice cold and sharp.
The marauder stopped a few steps away from the tall dark skinned and well trained woman, took a good look at her, up and down, before he answered with an approving smile.
"Well, lady, we believe we've stumbled across some friends of yours and just wanna' make sure this is the deal before we decide what to do with them, ya' follow me?"
Annoyed, Karidi snorted at the man's explanation and crossed her arms across her chest in a pose that told everyone around her to stay away.
"Am I asking for too much if I demand that you give them over to us right away?" she said.
The marauders laughed at this, even the blue haired one smirked a bit, his eyes never leaving Karidi's stern face.
"Well ain't ya' a doll," he said in a relaxed manner. "Of course we'll give them back to ya'; as soon as they've been fairly judged for the crime of trespassing, that is."
"We won't negotiate unless we know who they are and that they're unharmed," Karidi answered, seemingly unaffected by the man's mocking manner.
The marauder nodded slowly and waved at his men in the cars.
The three prisoners were brought forward and Jak could tell simply by the look of their clothes that these three were monks. He slowly got out of his car and joined the others where they stood behind Karidi with their firearms ready.
As the bags were pulled away from the prisoners' heads, all could see that they were indeed monks. The face paint had been smeared somewhat and their faces showed traces of rough beats with swollen areas, cracked lips and beginning bruises.
Karidi and the five men behind her, Jak included, reacted with pulling a face of disgust at the marauders for being this violent against people who everyone knew wouldn't fight back.
Jak felt like paying back the hospitality and almost regretted having left his gun at the backseat of his car.
He hardened his fists and tried to calm down. He knew he wouldn't last long in a fight right now, so he'd have to save up what ever strength he could in case he'd need it.
Meanwhile, the blue haired marauder had stepped up closer to Karidi.
"Ya' see anyone familiar?" he asked, his smile widening as he saw the dark faces of the spargans he had in front of him.
Karidi stared at him, her icy violet eyes silently speaking of violent death for anyone standing in her way.
This actually made the marauder step back a little and the smile faltered.
"You'll leave them all here and you'll bring the remaining two as well. You have no right to keep any of them prisoner, least of all if one of them is actually a spargan, as you're saying."
Karidi took another step forward, a little bit amused by seeing the marauder retreat another step as she did.
"Have I made myself clear?"
The blue haired man cleared his voice and nodded.
"Yes, m'am, but ya' see, we want something in return, or else ya' could forget about ever getting the boy back."
Jak harkened at the word "boy". Did the man mean to say they kept a kid prisoner?
"And what is it you want in return, creep? Money? We have nothing of value to you," Karidi said with the hint of a growl in her voice. She'd heard the word as well and was getting angrier by the minute, trying hard to figure out just who it could be that had been caught.
"A-ah-ah," the marauder said, wagging an index finger back and forth in front of her face. "Remember that we're the ones with the hostage here. We make the demands and if ya' can't cope with them, we'll simply keep the goods. That boy's a good piece of entertainment in the ring, ya' know. He won't come off cheap."
Jak bit his lip hard as to not say anything regrettable. His arms were aching from the previous fight, but he still felt like jumping the man simply for talking about a living person as if he was nothing but merchandise on the daily market.
Something in Karidi's posture told him that she was thinking something along the same road as he. Then at least he wasn't the only one.
"What are your demands then, marauder?" Karidi hissed, making the last word sound like something she'd like to bury underneath a pile of manure.
The marauder ignored the hostile tension in her words and dared to smile again.
"Orbs. About 300 for each prisoner. And six sets of blaster modguns if ya' want the boy alongside the monks. A small price really," he said slowly, carefully intonating every syllable.
"We'll see about the guns," Karidi answered through her teeth, eyes narrowing. "As far as the orbs go, I can get you those within a few hours…"
Before anyone could react, she took a long stride forward and grabbed the marauder by his shirt, lifting him a little bit off the ground as she did.
The man swallowed hard as panic started to show in his eyes, but he kept a straight face.
"…if you leave these three monks to us now. If not, you'll find out just how strong a true spargan woman can be," Karidi whispered sharply to his face, giving her words extra weight by throwing the man away from her, making him crash hard into one of his own men as she did.
"Ta' hell with ya' woman!" the man growled as he struggled back up on his feet.
"You first," Karidi answered him calmly.
There was a moment of silence between them, before the marauder gave in and motioned for his men to release the monks.
Two of Karidi's men took care of the freed prisoners as the marauders pulled back a few steps.
Jak was about to head over for his car, when suddenly he got the feeling that something was wrong and spun around to see that one of the marauder cars was aiming a missile against them.
Before Jak had a chance to call out a warning, the missile was launched and as he saw where it was heading, he ran for cover and managed to pull Karidi down with him behind her car as he threw himself down.
A mere second later, they felt the shockwave and the heat of fire as Jak's car exploded when the missile hit it.
Even before Karidi had gotten an order out to do so, the three monks had been placed in a car and one of the men drove off towards Spargus with them.
The rest of the men had taken up their guns and started shooting at the marauders as they got inside their cars.
"Nice reaction, goldilocks!" Karidi said with gratitude as she helped Jak up. "Now get in the car and we'll get out of here!"
Jak nodded silently and did as he was told. He had barely placed himself in the passenger seat when Karidi hit the gas and with spinning wheels they headed off in the same direction as the other car had gone a few seconds earlier.
They could hear the marauders shout out in-between the gunfire behind their backs.
"Hold on!" Karidi shouted out to Jak just before she reached the top of a dune, and one moment later the car was flying through the air, landing hard a number of meters further ahead.
Only a moment later they could hear another car land at the same spot and soon bullets were fired at them, even though the two cars were still too far apart for a hit.
Karidi cursed through her teeth.
"Could ya' get to the back and see if ya' can use the shooter back there to shake those darn jackals following us?"
Jak nodded his understanding and crawled over his seat and into the open back of the car, where he found a machine gun rigged to the car's frame.
He found a box of ammunition and loaded the gun while trying to stay put in the car as it bumped violently over the smaller dunes and one or another smaller rock sticking up from the sand.
A bullet suddenly swept close by his left ear and Jak looked up to see that the marauders following them had gotten much closer since the last time he'd looked.
Finally getting the ammunition in place, he stood up to manoeuvre the weapon and fired it off at the followers, who instantly saw to getting out of the way for the rain of bullets he sent at them.
Just as Jak thought he'd gotten rid of them, another of the marauder cars came roaring towards them from the side. Karidi made a sharp turn to avoid getting rammed, resulting in Jak falling out of the car as he didn't get any time to get a hold of something to keep him in place.
He landed hard upon the sand, the speed with which he'd been thrown sending him rolling around several times before he finally managed to stop the movement.
He could hear a car stopping somewhere near by and thought it best to get away from where he was as soon as possible.
But as the dizziness faded off and he tried to get back on his feet, Jak was violently shoved back down by the force of the flat side of someone's gun being pushed onto his back.
A hand was pressed down on the back of his head, forcing his face down into the hot sand.
"Not so fast, goldie. Ya' ain't getting nowhere."
Jak grimaced as he tried to move his face to the side in order to get some air.
"Let him breathe! We won't get any fun out of him if he's dead!" someone else called out for the man who was forcing Jak down, and soon enough the pressure on his head was released and he could get up from the sand, coughing violently as he tried to breathe again.
"Well ain't this a prize."
Jak recognized the voice of the blue haired man and looked up at him as his arms were pulled back behind his back and secured there by a thick rope.
The blue haired marauder smiled at him and pulled out the long dagger he'd been wearing at his side. He placed its sharp point against Jak's throat, forcing him to turn his face upwards.
"I'll be damned if I don't find this face a bit familiar," the man said with a mocking tune in his voice as he grabbed Jak's chin with his free hand and turned his head to the side as if to study his profile.
"I actually think we've managed to get us a grade one warrior, complete with a cute face and all!" the marauder said out loud and pulled teasingly at Jak's short bright green goatee, creating a series of laughter among his friends as he did.
The man put away the dagger and Jak got pulled up onto his feet by the man standing behind him.
"Now, seriously, I do believe I've seen your face before," the blue haired marauder said with a more serious tune in his voice as he studied Jak's face once more.
"What's your name?" he asked, squinting with his eyes as he did so, as if to sharpen his memory.
Jak didn't bother answering the question. Instead he lowered his eyebrows and stared darkly at his capturers.
The blue haired man harrumphed at this and stepped up close to him.
"I said, what's your name?" he repeated and without a warning slapped Jak hard in the face.
The marauders laughed, amused at the humiliation of the warrior.
Jak felt the stinging sensation spread from his cheek and across the entire left side of his face, feeling certain that the stinging area was getting red as the hit started to affect his already commenced headache.
He stared stubbornly at the sand beneath him as he tried to figure out a way to get out of this situation.
"So, ya' ain't talking? Nothing we can't change after a few hours of good care at the base camp, or what do ya' say boys?" the blue haired one stated and was answered with a cheer from his men.
"Well then, goldie, let's see if ya' can stand a chance against our champs," he said and winked at Jak as he looked up.
"Put him ta' sleep for a while, will ya'?" the man said and turned around to return to his waiting car.
Shortly after, Jak felt something hit him hard across the head.
He felt his body go limp as he closed his eyes and fell into the arms of unconsciousness.
