A post Star One story Jenna VS Avon Part 7.
WARNING THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH AND SOME GRAPHIC VIOLENCE.
The air felt laden with tense apprehension, as well as the heady woodland scents of red campion and viper's bugloss and the little dew-covered blossoms of wild garlic, bobbing on stems like white ungainly eyestalks. There was sweat dripping down the centre of her palm, and a frail white skein of spider's gossamer sticking to the gold waves of her velvety hair. Travis was like a silent black shadow beside her, crouched lithe and still in the undergrowth beside her, watching intently, his cyber arm rested over his knee, false fingers held unnaturally together.
As Jenna peaked out into the clearing, she could see Avon's confidently careful movement as he came out of the dense, sweet smelling foliage a short way away, heading directly towards the trussed-up, disgruntled figure of Blake.
"Got you" whispered Jenna.
"Stay here. I'll circle round. We can shut him off that way Jenna. Should I take the bow?" Travis' steady low voice felt like a confidence boost to her, but she was still apprehensive.
Jenna nodded breathlessly, feeling nervous. She didn't know how to use it. She'd take the Machete. Travis turned, his lanky frame sliding silently into the undergrowth. At the last minute Jenna whispered to him a warning, not being able to keep it to herself.
"Travis. Don't forget what he did to you on Star One. Avon's quick. Just don't forget that will you."
"Don't worry Jenna. There's no chance of that." He said placatingly, but she wasn't sure if he meant he wouldn't get hurt or he wouldn't forget." When I give the signal, be ready, alright." And then he was gone.
Jenna nodded even though he couldn't see her, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was nervous. As Avon's dark figure Knelt deftly beside Blake, an old conversation between them came to mind.
Could you kill someone, face to face I mean
I don't know, could you
There's one sure way of finding out
Jenna gripped the knife tighter.
And this was it, wasn't it. This was what she'd meant. She was going to kill Avon.
A glint like ethereal silver hit the corner of her eye' from across the clearing. Travis' signal. So, he was ready, in place behind the screen of dense green leaves. It was now or never.
Jenna stepped out boldly the same second Travis' long-legged frame did, bow in hand. As Avon turned towards Travis with the bow, a venomous look on the techs face and Blake's blood on his hand, Jenna jumped onto him, laying the caustic engineer out momentarily. They rolled together, but Avon managed to get the upper hand, kicking Jenna off him viciously.
"Get out of here Blake!" he yelled acidly, as Blake unravelled the rest of his bindings.
Jenna scrambled away from Avon's precise kicks and as she did so Travis pulled Avon up roughly by his studded leather jacket. He backhanded the shorter man viciously and Avon hit the leaflitter and rolled, with a hard crunch of snapping twigs and crushed dry leaves, blood dripping into his teeth from a broken nose. A look of surprise showed on the snakelike techs bleeding features as Travis raised the bow to finish him off. It was only at the lastminute that he realised why. Blake was behind him instead of running on Avon's order, stumbling but erect. Jenna's shout of alarm came too late as the stubborn rebel brought Jenna's dropped machete down hard, cutting deeply into Travis' bionic arm's circuitry. A blinding burning sensation overran his senses as electricity overloaded his neural circuitry,
and he fell to his knees, his face pale as bleached chalk. He heard, somewhat distantly over the pain, a thwack behind him and he assumed Jenna had knocked Blake unconscious with something. Especially when moments later he felt her gentle form behind him, her arm supporting his back, her soft fingers fussing with him. He couldn't do much to stop her anyway. So he didn't try. He could feel his muscles convulsing under the growing electric stimuli, his mind fogged by the pain, but Jenna held him still. He could hear her voice, panicked, so close to his ear.
"Hold on Travis. What happened. Talk to me, come on." She ran a soft hand over his forehead, clearly worried as the ex-officer struggled to reply.
"Blake. My arm.." He could only vaguely see her.
"Alright." She hushed, faking calm for his benefit "Let me look."
"Jenna, Avon's still alive." Travis growled urgently, a vicious edge to his words, on the verge of passing out but fighting against it "You have to finish him, then we can get back to the ship." before gritting out savagely "I can manage." He didn't mention that if his prosthetic overloaded completely, it would probably discharge a fatal electric shock. If he told her, she wouldn't go, and they needed to kill Avon or they were both dead anyway, and it seemed like it was a way off from that for now at least. Travis set his jaw grimly, closing his eyes doggedly at the increasing discomfort as Jenna gently let go of his shoulders, quickly making sure the disabled soldier wasn't going to fall and do still more damage.
The golden-haired smuggler nodded, looking up to see Avon staggering to his feet shaking his head to clear it, blood on his face, and a glinting knife in his hand. Jumping up quickly in alarm Jenna grabbed the bow and arrows from where they had fallen on the dirt strewn leafy ground, drawing it back with fiery determination and anger. A step forwards, putting herself between the cold-hearted computer expert and Travis' incapacitated figure. She loosed the first arrow without thinking, heart hammering in her chest and hearing the snap back of the bowstring close to her cheek and the shaft as it whizzed through the air. Avon only gave a small scream as it imbedded in his right chest wall with a wet thump, spraying a light spatter of deep cochineal lifeblood as Avon fell back against the ground with a thud. She was glad Blake was unconscious then.
A look of untapped anger and retaliation finally let loose fell inti place on the fierce golden woman's dainty features and she raised her chin, defiant hot eyes glaring down at him. Already knowing what she was thinking, Avon gritted out, clearly finding it hard, and likely agonising to breathe, but not allowing it to sway his judgement.
"We were enemies Jenna. We still are. Survival very rarely leaves time for sentiment."
"Sentiment! Is that what you call basic humanity." Jenna blazed, notching another shaft to the bow "No, you never did care did you Avon. Not about what you did or who you hurt! Well maybe I should show you what it's like, to be on the receiving end"
"Go ahead!" declared the injured genius daring bravado in his steely snakelike eyes "Am I supposed to be intimidated by you?"
"You should be" she answered, her voice baring chilled anger as she loosed a second shaft. That one hit him in the upper leg, and he cried out once more.
"Oh should I!" He spat back defiantly, blood colouring his thin lips.
"Now talk or scream, Avon. Is that how you put it! Just tell me, would you have done it? Be informative and I'll let you die. You'll want me to after I've shot off an arm or a leg or two. That's what you said to him isn't it. You're a bastard Avon." Jenna was screaming at him, staring at the engineer with fire in her eyes, ignoring the stinging wetness that accompanied it.
"And look at you following in my footsteps." he drawled back cuttingly "I never tortured Travis, Jenna."
"No you left him to die didn't you, on Star On. But saying that's enough to make me want to kill you. You know what he's already been through, and to make a threat like that? Just tell me, would you have done it?" Jenna raised her chin, latching another shaft to her bowstring.
"Yes!" There was no remorse in his acidly certain reply, and none in hers when she stared back at him.
"Then I won't feel any remorse for this."
The last arrow struck him in the throat, and the cold-hearted genius gave out a strangled cry of pain, blood spattering from the wound like poison sapping from it, gushing like a broken fountain, until the man stilled, his breath falling motionless completely, in silence, his last cutting remark nothing but glistening red bubbles and a trail of blood from his partially open mouth. The bow lowered, and Jenna wondered if she had slightly shocked herself. Where had that anger come from? But she realised she already knew, knew that it was because she cared more amount Travis than she had originally thought. At least they were free now, so long as she got Travis help with relative quickness. She knelt down out of formality really' to check the dead man in case of a pulse.
"I didn't think you had one anyway" she said bitterly, referring to his heart, when she felt nothing.
"No! Avon!" Came a broken cry from across the clearing. Blake must have recovered his wits. It had to happen eventually I suppose.
Thanks for reading. Yes it was Avon who got killed. Not really a surprising choice but I hope I pulled it off ok. I liked writing Jenna's fire in that scene though.