"You have everything of value that we possess… now please go!"
Zhaan clenched at her bleeding shoulder wound as she looked up from the ground at the man who had just cut her. Her attempt at bargaining our way out of an altercation was obviously failing.
There were seven of them. All large men with the look of experience at strong-arm crimes, armed with an array of serviceable weapons, ranging from slightly rusty knives to old-fashion blasters. They had cornered us in a deserted alleyway some distance from the bazaar we had abruptly left when Chiana thought she might have seen a patrol of law-enforcement personnel that was showing too much interest in looking the market clientele over.
Three of our assailants had trailed us while the other four waited ahead of us inside the alley. The pincer movement was basic, simple but effective – sound tactics that I understood… and might have used myself if the roles were reversed.
"You better hope that's not all you have, Delvian tralk!" spewed the man with the knife now stained with Zhaan's blood.
When the men approached and their intent became clear, the priestess whispered to us to let her handle the situation, and that it would be best if we just gave them the meager supplies we had managed to gather rather than risk drawing attention to ourselves by fighting back. The planet was resource poor and we hadn't found much we could use back aboard Moya, however much like countless other worlds, the criminal element here was just as greedy and callous as elsewhere.
That also was something I understood all too well.
They had been displeased with what they found in our nearly empty packs, and without warning, the one I judge to be leader had slashed Zhaan across the shoulder, surprising the Delvian and knocking her to the ground as a result.
"That's all the frell we have!" Chiana spat back after she had knelt down beside the blue woman and began ripping at the Delvian's outer robes after inspecting her shoulder to make bandages to press against the bleeding wound.
"Lets just see," said another thug with a blaster. "Give me your frelling coat!" he demanded as he set action to words. He reach down, grabbing the Nebari's gray overcoat by the shoulder and jerked so hard that the young girl was spun away from the injured Zhaan. Chiana was effectively stripped of the garment and left stunned on the ground with the wind knocked out of her a short way from the priestess.
I had sworn to obey Zhaan without question on this trip planet-side, and offered no resistance when she decided to hand over our supplies. Her unity sessions with me to recover my memory and past have left me with a deep respect for the Delvian woman and her abilities, it was only logical that I do as she instructed.
Even remaining still after the man with the knife had cut her against my baser instincts. Unity had shown me that Zhaan would willingly suffer the minor injury rather then retaliate if given the choice and opportunity. The concept was one she had done her utmost to impart to me during our sessions. Life, all life, was sacred to her… even this criminal's who had just harmed her.
I, on the other hand was having growing difficulty reining in my Enforcer nature. The Syndicate had programmed me for retribution … my sole function in the organization was one of violence. Finding myself in the midst of escalating aggression… I found a core part of me wanted to step off the edge and give myself into it, despite trying to follow what Zhaan had been attempting to teach me… and what she had instructed.
The robber with Chiana's coat chortled as a quick search turned up the pitiful bounty of items she had managed to snurch without Zhaan or I catching her. The discovery made our capturers a little more hopeful for more hidden treasure.
"Where's the rest of it, whore?" the leader snarled as he painfully ground his heel into Chiana's knee.
"That's all!" the Nebari girl managed to squeal out as she pulled her leg out from under the man's boot with some great effort.
A low growl escaped me and I felt the small pressure in my eyes that meant they were tinting silver. Zhaan had been racking her brain to discover a way to get us out of the position before it turned critical without success. Her worried gazed snapped to me at the animalistic noise I issued without thought.
"Berret…" she pleaded in a low tone.
The leader looked over at me also. "Oh, we haven't forgotten about you fancy-boy," he said. Another gang member with a gun directed the muzzle at me to enforce his chief's point. "I think we'll just relieve you of that fine-looking cloak you're hiding under. I know some rich nurfer that would give me a pretty credit chip for it."
Their attention was fine with me. If they were focusing on me, they were leaving Chiana and Zhaan alone for the moment. My vision had sharpened – fine details about my opponents were brought to the front of my attention and indexed for tactical reference. They seemed to be moving in slow motion to me as I studied them. My body felt warm, reflexes sharp, and my blood charged… while the inner part of me, that which I thought of as my center, felt cold as an ice moon.
It was always that way when the microbes' augment took me.
It was always that way when my Shrike nature decided it was time to kill.
I stepped forward. The cloak fell from my shoulders with a touch of the silver clasp that held it. The thugs were more then surprised to discover the gunmetal-black armor that covered most of my body. On this backwater world I doubted that they knew what Enforcer body-armor was. There was simply nothing here that would have interested the Scarran Black Syndicate, thus they would have little or no interaction with its representatives.
"What the hezmana?" the leader said, and then laughed at the sight of me. The rest of his group soon joined in.
I felt myself involuntarily smirk at their ignorance. My programming was designed to exploit weaknesses; it was also designed to make sure that their education would be a malicious one.
A small groan of defeat drew my attention back to Zhaan. I meet her blue eyes and a tiny part of me nearly hesitated. I did not need the link of Unity to know that a feeling of utter powerlessness to prevent what was coming passed between her and the rapidly fading part of me that was Berret in that split microt of a gaze.
While I did not find endorsement there, I found repugnance acceptance of what was going to happen.
Zhaan understood; the circumstances of the situation which had grown out of her control despite her best effort, the fact that our attackers had willingly pushed it to that conclusion, and the realization that I could no longer resist my Enforcer conditioning.
I am what I was made to be.
Chiana had made her way back over to the Delvian and was by her side as I turned back to the group of street thugs. " 'Ret? Retty?" she asked, her panic building as she realized what was about to take place.
Her tone drove a spike into my waning control; the pitiless blackness – the Shrike – came to the front of my being to ply its trade.
My friend, my savior, knew the price of self-loathing I would pay later. I also knew she would suffer right along side with me in a way. I briefly wondered why she chose to bear the pain I brought to her. Knowing what I was, seeing me kill ruthlessly, witnessing the awful deeds I was capable of.
She had to be as revolted as I was… yet she has not asked me to leave.
The Nebari thief made as if to scramble forward to restraint me, Zhaan halted her with her good arm.
"Chiana… you cannot stop it now," the Delvian told her quietly.
Yes, Zhaan knew my temperament all too well.
Chiana helplessly grasped the older woman's hand tightly and forced herself to watch.
The part of my new post-Syndicate persona that had been pushed far into the background of what I was wished in vain that she'd turn away, bury her face in Zhaan's robes, and not watch.
Sensing a new game afoot, the group of men surrounded me, all but ignoring the two women.
I felt the armor settle about me like a second skin. I, the Shrike, barely noticed its weight most of the time and never while in combat… or while hunting prey when I was a Syndicate assassin.
I flexed my fingers in the metal plated half-gloves that protected my hands. I was well aware of the twin blades that rested along both my forearms inside each of the braces, ready to be called forth to spill blood and end life.
The gauntlets were biomechanical in nature, like Moya, though not as advanced in intelligence. I was linked to them through my microbe augmentation in such a way that the weapons they concealed became almost a part of my own body. Together we became a one, a whole single entity… a twisted, soulless creature that served death in the most gruesome ways imagined.
When the blades deployed, I knew exactly where the tip of each one ended as surely as I knew where each of my fingertips ended… I could feel exactly how deep they'd bite when they pierced flesh, sense the parting of bone, and perceive the stilling of a heart or other organ.
Each deadly claw-like blade started out in a vague three-edged T-shape and tapered to a fine piercing point some fourteen henta in front of my closed fist. The perfect design for a predator… and like a born predator at any given time I knew where each edge and stabbing point is orientated in relation to what I want to kill.
The rare metal they are constructed of, Bat'Rellite in the Scarran language, can shear through lesser metals as if they were mere paper. The bladed never needed to be sharpened; the unique molecular properties of the unusual element made that task superfluous. Flesh, bone, and most body armor… its all the same to me if I decided to eradicate something.
The only material that poses a problem to my quasi-talons is the Luxan metal – Qualta. Qualta is the elemental opposite to Bat'Rellite, just as Luxan warriors are the ethical opposite of Shrike assassins. Qualta, like its Luxan masters is to be feared by the Syndicate Shrike. Qualta can spell defeat, defeat of my weapons and failure of my mission.
Just as a Luxan should never be faced in opened single combat, Luxans are best killed by ambush or by superior numbers. Which is why Enforcers eradicate Luxans in Triads with the help of a Master Shrike.
It is this form of "un-honorable" tactics that leads the Luxan to hate Shrikes as much as we hate them.
I cannot help it – it is in my programming. Which is why I had such difficultly adjusting to Ka'D'Argo's presence aboard the Leviathan.
Luckily, with Chiana and Zhaan's help I have been able to get around that portion of my ingrained nature for the most part.
My opponents ranged about me, some in front, some behind, some to the sides just in my peripheral vision.
Paths and patterns of attack formed and then reformed in my mind as each attacker shifted his position one way or another. I let it happen as it would – trusting in the Enforcer part of myself that I was growing to despise so much – to be cool, calculating, and to pick the optimal moment.
It wasn't time yet.
That component of me that coldly judged range and angles for killing assaults told me that one or two men at any given time were outside of my efficient extermination zone. The Syndicate assassin within me would not react until either the perfect moment arrived… or one of the men finally commenced the attack.
As a normal humanoid, even one with the microbe augmentation, I knew that there was little likelihood of surviving such an attack of superior numbers, I had no choice but to let the skills my past left me with take over and do what they were intended to do.
The part of me that had become Berret faded into the background, my mind shifted further into the cold and calculating thing I had once been before Chiana and her crewmates took me in.
It seemed like arns might had passed but I instinctively knew it was only microts. Possible patterns of attack updated and rearranged themselves as I waited. Tactics and strategies inserted themselves wherever called for.
Strangely, my Scarran masters had seen fit to download several military texts on the subject of battle strategies from several cultures into my assassin programming. One of the ones that most presented itself was by the ancient Scarran tactician, Fortgar. Fortgar's writings "The Five Postures and Elements of Battle" was still required study in the Scarran military five thousand cycles after his death.
One of the basic concepts in Fortgar's teaching said, "the true warrior lived 'at the moment of violence'. Nothing that came before mattered, nothing that will come after will mater. There is only the perfect execution of your craft in the perfect moment."
As a Syndicate Enforcer, I have too many memories of "living at the perfect moment." And here I was, posed at that moment once more.
How I, as Berret, hated this life.
Thinking my unfocused gaze was one of fear, one of the men armed with a long knife laughed and rushed several steps in to skewer my throat with his weapon.
The moment had arrived.
I waited as he approached and committed himself, sure of an easy kill. Just as he lunged with the knife I twisted slightly and stepped back with my right foot, turning my body side-ways to him and out of his line of attack. My right forearm came out and almost gently deflected his thrust past me even further; it was always easier to redirect a thrust then to stop it. I twisted back the way I had been and sent my left arm in under his attacking limb. Stepping forward as I did this helped send the ridge-hand strike I used into his throat and pick him up off his feet. The metal covering the backs of my hands aided in crushing my foe's larynx, he was already choking to death as he hit the ground. The game was no longer gentle.
A second man to my right uttered a loud curse and stepped forward with a staff the size of a walking stick to take a side-swing at my skull. The sound of the stick cutting the air told me that the end was armed with razor-sharp pieces of metal. I automatically crossed both my arms across my chest and went to one knee to duck the blow. The staff passed over me, it's wielder taking one more step closer to bring his body almost over me as he attempted to recover from swinging the heavy staff. The brace blades shot from their housings and I uncrossed my arms, raking the backs of the blades through his abdomen… spilling his insides outward and down, to become entangled with his own legs. I reversed the arch of my right arm and cut upward through his knee, severing it and sending my now unbalanced opponent toppling away from me.
I imagine he had to be screaming, but it didn't register on my consciousness at that moment. Only the next move in the pattern mattered.
The next serious threats to me were the three men armed with blasters. I smoothly rose back to my feet, the blades retracting back into my braces to clear my hands. My armor is layered in scale-like plates, and not all of them are exactly as they seem. A number of my weapons are constructed to blend in as if part of the armor.
I reached down with both hands to the shells covering my thighs and pulled at a section. Two long throwing knives separated from their built-in sheaths. I took only the time to raise my arms and snap my hands downward. Both blades flew in two different directions to strike two of the gunmen; both of knives buried themselves to the hilt in the throat of each man.
The third man with a gun was behind me; I dropped to the ground and rolled backwards to where I judge him to be. I had deliberately placed myself in line with another thug holding a multi-chained flail weapon.
As expected, a shot rang out just as I hit the ground and rolled. I came back to my feet and spared a glance at the flail man to see his gun-toting companion had missed me, only to wound him in the shoulder. I then half-turned and caught the gunman's arm before he could recover and redirect his blaster at me.
I shattered his elbow.
His limb became suddenly flexible in my grasp and I resettled the gun to aim back on the man with the chain flail. I used the injured man's near dead finger to trigger the gun once more, and shot the flail user several more times in the chest. I idly cataloged that the firearm was a slug thrower as the chain-wielding thug fell backwards. I cranked back hard on the gunman's weapon arm, making him scream loudly as I jammed the muzzle of his weapon up under his own chin.
I helped his trigger finger to squeeze again, and the screaming stopped.
The entire fight had lasted mere microts in real time. I let the third gun user fall to the dirt and slowly rose to face the last gang member – the leader of the group.
He looked shocked, as if he couldn't believe his friends were dead.
I was use to that look. I had seen it countless times.
He backed up a few steps, as I watched, not aware of his position in the alleyway. He turned to run but only made a few steps before he realized he was facing a wall and blocked in. He spun back around to face me once more, finding that I was between him and his only route to freedom. Chiana and Zhaan were behind me as well.
There was no way in hezmana I was going to let him by.
He visibly steeled his nerves and then rushed me with his knife leading the way, accompanied with a scream to reinforce his resolve.
Here was the final moment. I did something not even I could predict – I closed my eyes. Time ceased for me, not even the sound of his closing footsteps seemed to matter. I inwardly was still, calm, despite what should have been a dangerous, life-threatening situation.
The moment took on a life of it own and stretched on for eternity.
Without thought, my right arm seem to slowly reach out before me of it's own will, the blades uncoiling from my brace felt like they took forever. Even when they reached full deployment, they appeared to hover there for cycles on their own.
Then the impact came, a jarring from faraway.
My eyes creped open slowly, to focus on the point of an unmoving knife blade just henta in front of them. In slow motion, the blade turned on its side and slipped away as if gravity were slowly claiming it.
Once it moved away, revealed in its place I saw my last enemy at arm's length. Both of his eyes pierced by my brace blades, he hung there like a puppet with all its strings cut.
He had impaled himself at the last instant.
A Scarran tinted voice spoke with some satisfaction in the back of my mind.
"The moment had been… perfect."
A downward tilt of my arm and the dead man slid free of my blades. Time decided at that point to reassert itself and everything appeared to return to normal. Automatically, I flicked the blades to rid as much of the gore from the metal as I possibly could. I normally didn't notice but the gauntlets themselves released a cleaning enzyme that broke down biological material on the blades before re-sheathing them. This time I allowed my self to watch and not dwell for that instant on what I'd just done.
It was better than facing Chiana and Zhaan just then.
I then forced myself to fully examine the carnage, as I heard Chiana helping Zhaan to her feet somewhere behind me. There was no reason I should ever allow myself to forget. I wanted to remember, needed to remember… this is what I needed to change if I were ever to become better than what the Syndicate left me as.
The moment had not been perfect.
Had I been better, more in control, I could have defeated those men without taking their lives.
I would not have failed Zhaan… and not have tossed aside what she has gone to such pains to teach me.
Chiana would not have seen me do these things.
My two crewmates hobbled up behind me and stood silently for a few microts. I neither turned nor acknowledged them. The tiny rustle of their clothing told me they were surveying what I had wroth just as I was. A moment later a hand settled on my shoulder, I could tell without looking that it was Zhaan's.
"It was not your fault, " she told me. "They chose this path."
I turned then to look at her, feeling the emotionless expression of an Enforcer fill its usual place upon my features, knowing her words were a lie, solely meant to spare my feelings… and possibly cover her disappointment. She knew as well as I that I could have used other non-lethal means… had I really wished to.
She was just too kind a soul to at that moment point out that I was too weak to resist giving in to the Syndicate Enforcer still inside me.
Knowing I saw the falsehood in her comment, she turned toward other more pressing concerns for the time. "Come, let us leave and return to the Transport as fast as we can," the Delvian said. "We will find nothing more useful on this world, and we do not want to be answering any questions from what passes as the local Peacekeepers here."
The priestess paused just a microt to wave a silent blessing over the bodies of the fallen after she and Chiana collected our meager supplies and gray girl's coat, and started her way back toward where we left our ship. I used the time to recollect my cloak and drape it over my shoulders once again.
Chiana turned to me as the Delvian moved away and regarded me with soulful dark eyes. She attempted a weak smile and then realized it for what it was and let it die. She then instead moved in to briefly hug herself to me.
I knew the Nebari would not ask anything of me right there, she would wait until we were alone and in private ask if I wished to talk… knowing I would refuse as I always do.
Then she would quietly bear the next few solar days while I struggle to come to accept what I was… and the things I was capable of doing all over again.
She had seen for herself, knew what I could be like, but I could never bring myself to lay bare to her the whole of what I was, of all the things I had learned I have done, and the countless bloody things I have yet to discover about my past.
To learn everything, to hear it all… I was sure would drive her away.
She broke the hug sooner than I would have liked, but it was necessary that we move and leave the area. Somehow, she knew that the silent contact was the best thing to reassure me at the moment. It shore up my resolved to carry on a little further in the struggle to deal with what I was.
She reached back and took my hand to pull me forward behind her.
I followed, never letting go of the lifeline those small fingers had become for me.