Drax Elite molTare Erda:

It starts, as so many situations in my life seem to, with a wild race against time to save a life.

In this case, it was not to be; I burst through a large and ornately-decorated pair of bronze doors just in time to hear a shot and see a body thrown, stilling, to the ground. I was late. Late, and as a result so was another - albeit in a different way - one upon whose shoulders the fate of worlds should have rested.

The killer holstered his weapon, nudged the body with a foot. 'You? Beat me? I think not. Especially since ye're dead. Hah - try stopping me like that, girlie!'

And with that he left through a smaller door I had not previously noticed, leaving me alone with the perforated body of the Ctarl-Ctarl female, Aisha Clanclan.

Checking in a perfunctory manner for surveillance devices - and activating a standard white-noise generator for safety's sake - I hurried over to the forlorn shape lying in the middle of the room, sparing only the briefest of glances at the room itself. It was, as far as I could see, hardly standard for the dining hall of a baronial castle - even if it was accepted that this was an Eya planet, with all the penchant for mixing gadgetry and mumbo-jumbo that implied, there was still some very wierd kit lying around the place. Something tried to get itself noticed, but among the clutter it was quite impossible to make out what. Nothing important, in all likelihood; I turned my attention back to the body on the floor.

Sheathing my needlegun pistols, I deactivated the hardshell combat armour surrounding me as I dropped to my knees to better make a close examination of the wounds. N-lock armour material collapsed inwards upon itself, storing away in a belt unit all the parts of my apparel which ensure I am more of a walking fortress than a bullet-absorber, revealing my jet-black stealth gear underneath.

I rolled Aisha onto her back, winced at the wounds I saw.

'By all that's holy...'

What had he shot her with? I had heard only the one gunshot, yet the cat looked as if a Gatling gun had gone to work on the entire right side of her abdomen.

'Why'd you go and do it, girl? Yes, you're strong and all, but to attack this one, alone... why couldn't you have at least waited ten seconds longer? Why aren't the rest of your crew with you? Why...why...
'...Why are you still breathing?'

Bloody hell! She's alive! Words could not express the fierce rush of exultation that flooded through me as the chest of the catgirl rose and fell, ever so slightly but definitely there - I had to hold back a cry of victory at the sudden realisation that the situation could yet be saved. Aisha lived!

Mind you, I added to myself, these people had better have some damn' good medical technology on hand, or things may yet turn pear-shaped. Ms. Clanclan was not in the best of shape. Time, obviously, was of the essence.

'Let's get you out of here, missy.'

I lifted her as gently as I possibly could, avoiding jarring or shaking the tenuous thread of life still clinging to its abode for fear that I might unwittingly dislodge it forever, and made for the door with all sensible haste.

'And just where do ye think ye're going, pray? I think ye'll find that I killed that wee beastie, in defense o' me own life indeed, and I'm having the pelt from 'er.'

I froze in my tracks. Two short steps brought me to a low divan-like thing along one side of the hall; I laid Aisha upon it and turned to face the speaker with an expression on my face that spoke as eloquently as I could make it of future sufferings. Perhaps it would be best if this individual believes her to be dead, I considered.

'I think not... matey... I'm taking her for a decent burial. I doubt you'll be needed at the funeral this time. You won't have much choice about attending yours, of course - and that might be nearer to now than you think.'

'Ye talk a good fight, laddie, but I've no time for this. Go away, and leave me m'little trophy behind before I decide to bag another, ye get ma drift?'

He fingered the butt of the hideous firearm in its holster at his side, his other hand making skinning motions as he grinned at me. Seems I'd got myself into another situation. Oh well, that's why I'm armed. I focused my gaze on a patch of empty air just above his left (pointy) ear and replied:

'An interesting proposal, my Gaelic-stylee acquaintance. But my counter-proposal is: get your arse out of here at once, before I do something irreversable to the flow of universal events by obliterating you.'

His grin grew wider. Then it dropped off his face, as he realized that not a trace of bravado had coloured my voice. He pulled the weapon he carried out of its holder in one angry motion, sighted along it towards me. 'Ye've made me angry now. Get gone, or I'll kill ye.'

'Fine.'

I reactivated my armour suit, pulled one of my own guns.

'We'll see who sinks first, hmm, elf-boy?'

The blond-haired owner of the room in which I stood took a step back in surprise at witnessing the sudden change from black-clad, cocky housebreaker into black-armoured, ominous death-on-legs. For a moment he looked completely nonplussed, then looked down again at the gun that he had let fall to his side. He raised it, took careful aim at my chest. Now, I thought, I find out just how good that gun of his really is...

He pulled his trigger, and the world as far as I could see it turned momentarily white as every optical pickup in the suit helmet overloaded all at once. While everything was thus overilluminated, I heard several sharp 'spang!' noises from about my chest level as nasty little shredder bullets bounced off of the N-lock suit in several directions.

Obviously, then, that gun is a piss-poor peashooter when it comes to my armour. I said as much to him, noting with delight that one of the bullets had ricocheted past his ear and removed a neat little chunk of his earlobe.

'Not good enough, blokey. Current score: me one, you nil. And now it's my turn;'

I pulled the trigger on the needlegun in my hand once. It was on full power and minimum spread, so an intense beam about a centimetre in diameter lanced from its emitters and caught the little finger on his left hand at the bottom joint. The finger disappeared in a sudden flash of blood, and elf-boy screamed.

'A little something to remember these by; the death you caused, and the death that could have been yours. Nobody crosses Erda mol Tare.'

I flicked the power level on the gun's control panel to minimum, pointed it at his head and fired once more. A wide beam with the force of a smashing uppercut caught the baron underneath the chin and sent him flying back into a pile of electrical circuit boards.I'll give him this: the lad's got strength in him. He picked himself up almost at once, cradling the hand from which his little finger was gone.

'Take the cursed corpse then. But I'll no' forget ye, laddie. An' don' think I'll look down kindly on ye... when I become a god! Bwahahaha!'

Elf-boy fled the room, mocking (or possibly merely insane) laughter floating back from the room through the smaller door out of which he had come and to which he had returned. For a brief, irrational moment I seriously considered leaping to the door, blasting it out of the way and dealing out some lessons in respect, molTare style. No: killing him was most likely not to be my job, and besides that a more urgent problem lay horribly injured on the divan where I had laid her. I returned to her and picked her up as before.

'First stop for you, the nearest hospital. Then... I'm going to have a word with your shipmates...'

I could have sworn, just for one moment, that her eyes opened and she looked directly at me.