New Blood
by Saber Alexander McConnell
Rated PG13

CHAPTER 3: No Quarter

Sirens shrieked, rising even above the jets and the laser weapons that streaked from the sky and in the streets, harming friend as well as enemy at times—it was still a very new technology, rushed into battle by their bearers. Thunder crashed overhead, adding to the din, transforming the once-quiet streets of Darwin, Australia into a confusion of noise, nothing but noise, screaming and gunshots and explosions...

Kalama Nohano cowered behind the ruins of what had once been a supermarket by the looks of it, trying only not to be shot or trampled or blown up. He'd never been more scared in his life—he wasn't even in a country that was his own. The shouting, the screaming for help or mercy, English, but accented, sometimes so badly he could scarcely understand them. It was as if they were speaking in tongues.

A blast sounded behind him, making him scream, and he whirled around. Another scream sounded, a young-sounding scream, and Nohano caught sight of another boy running, his face blackened by soot, or maybe blood—Nohano couldn't tell which. The boy looked about Nohano's age, but with tears streaming down his cheeks and a look of sheer terror on his face, he seemed much younger.

A sharp pang of fear for the other boy gripped Nohano, and he dashed from his hiding place, running after him. The boy ran, seemingly not even noticing Nohano, the fierce wind whipping his blond hair back.

It began to rain—the laser fire ceased, the weapons useless in the rain, but the screaming and the gunpowder blasts did not stop. But there was another sound now, a louder sound, a great roaring. Nohano looked up in terror at a great wall of water rising in the dark, and he realized with sudden horror that it was going to crash down on him and the other boy...

Someone was shaking him—a great disorientation came over Nohano as he opened his eyes, squinting in bright sunlight that shone on his face. He screamed and sat bolt upright, catching sight of someone recoiling quickly so they wouldn't bang heads. Nohano stared...the tent. He was lying in the tent. The din outside was not caused by a war, but of merrymakers at the faire, all dressed in clothing of the Renaissance period. Shaking, Nohano looked to the person was had wakened him—it was only Robert, one of the others singers in the group, a look of concern on his face.

"You okay, kid?" Robert asked.

"I-I--" Nohano looked around and took in a big breath, realizing he was shaking badly. He looked back outside the opening of the tent, where the sunlight had come from, taking a few moments to calm down. Finally he was able to speak without his voice trembling. "I'm okay," he said, running a hand distractedly through his thick, black hair. "I'm okay. Just—just a bad water dream."

Comprehension crossed Robert's face—the whole group knew of Nohano's fear of water, especially as it sometimes haunted him at night. As they all shared sleeping quarters when on the road, they'd found out about his fear fairly quickly. "I hear ya, kid. You gonna be okay? We're on in about fifteen minutes, on the east stage."

"Thanks," said Nohano, smiling a little and sitting all the way up. "I'll be ready."

Robert nodded, and clapped Nohano on the shoulder. "All right, kid. See ya in a few."

Nohano watched him leave the tent, then lay back in the grass, his eyes closed. He couldn't believe he'd fallen asleep in the middle of the Renaissance Faire, and with their next performance so close; he'd never done that before. He was always too excited to sleep, no matter how tired he was. He'd traveled with the group now for nearly a year, but he never managed to grow tired of it.

Nohano sat back up, creeping out of the little tent, a tent they used to store their things between performances, and to catch some rest if they liked.

The dream. That had been the worst nightmare he had ever had before—and so strange! The war was bad enough, it was a war that was truly happening across the sea in Australia, a civil war, but to add the tsunami into it... And strangely, Nohano couldn't shake the remnants of the dream. "Damn it, it was nothing," he hissed to himself, turning his face to the sun. It was March 15th, an unlucky day if one happened to be superstitious. The Ides of March. Nohano wasn't normally superstitious, but after that miserable dream, he wasn't so sure!

He shook his head and ducked back into the tent, grabbing his headband from the floor. The headband, part of his pirate costume, had apparently come off during his dream. He tied it back on and grabbed his drum, and made for the east stage.

"No Quarter" was the name of their group, a pirate-themed singing group that performed at Renaissance Faires and other themed gatherings and places around the United States. Nohano had first joined the group several months ago at the age of fourteen, auditioning at one of the many faires in California. Normally one had to be eighteen to travel with a faire group, but Nohano was an emancipated minor, and therefore could legally gain employment.

He had never regretted it; he loved traveling, and loved singing. He also loved pirates and theme festivals, so to him, it was the perfect job.

The others had already set up by the time Nohano got to the stage, and he grinned at them as he ascended the short flight of steps leading up to it. They all greeted him, looking rather wrung out. It was their third performance that day, and the day was blazing hot; no one wanted to expend energy before they had to perform. Nohano was perfectly happy with the weather; the hotter the better, but his friends didn't care for it quite as much. Singing under the sun was hot work.

"What're we doing first?" asked Nohano.

"'Drunken Sailor'," said Robert, who was the leader of the group. He was the oldest, at twenty-seven, and handled most of the group's gigs and finances. There were only five of them, but keeping track of everyone could be difficult work!

Nohano managed a smile. "Oh, good." That was one they'd played numerous times over the past year, which meant that Nohano didn't have to concentrate too much on it; he was still a little distracted. He listened with one ear as Robert introduced them all, smiling a little wryly as he was presented as Kalama Nohano. He liked his last name better, so that's what he went by, and hearing his full name always sounded odd to him.

He watched Robert pick up his guitar, and nod his head down once, the subtle signal to start the music. Nohano raised his hands and brought them down on the large drum, beating out the rhythm and singing alto harmony as an audience began to gather from among the people milling about.

Their group wasn't exactly famous, but they were fairly well known among faire-goers and the like. Mostly they traveled around the numerous faires in the western United States, but they'd been to all fifty-one of them at one point or another—not in the time Nohano had been with them, though he had been to several, including Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico had been interesting. They'd sung a Spanish song, and had at least three people tell them of the words they'd pronounced wrong. But, you had some know-it-all creeps in every crowd, he supposed.

The song finished, and Nohano raised his hands, whooping it up with the rest of the group. His preoccupation lessened as the show continued—singing could always do that to him. By the time their performance was finished, and they were passing the hat for coins, he had almost forgotten his dream entirely.

"Man!" exclaimed their bass singer, a man named Gregory. "It's a scorcher out here." Gregory was actually from England, so the accent he used in the show was the only real one. Nohano only grinned, and Gregory rolled his eyes in a fond sort of way. "There's something wrong with you, I'm tellin' you. No normal human thrives in this heat. You sure you're not part reptile?"

"Only part?" said Nohano, raising his eyebrows.

Gregory laughed. "Guess that's my answer! Hey, gimme a hand with this crate, will you? We gotta cart our crap down to the south side of the fairgrounds for our last performance."

Nohano nodded agreeably and took the other end of the crate, which held various things like costume parts, the CDs they'd cut, and the ukulele that Gregory played. The group had a sort of routine down regarding the movement of their equipment. It didn't matter who the things belonged to, everyone just picked something up and carried it off, like a group of ants. Nohano saw Robert grab the drum and the mallets Nohano used on some songs. It took them less than ten minutes to move.

He got through the rest of the day well enough, though was a bit irritated when clouds began to roll in from the west. Irwindale, the little town in which the faire was held, was right down near Mexico, but it was also on the coast, and got their share of thunderstorms. He supposed he couldn't complain too much; the last week had been sunny and hot. Still, the sky had a bit of a greenish cast to it, which made him think again of his dream, where it had stormed overhead while the battle raged below.

When the fair was ended Nohano joined the rest of the group in one of the beer tents, drinking a soda with a lot of caffeine in it. Even he felt beat—it had been a grueling day for certain. They'd had two more performances per day than usual at the California faire; no one minded because it was a high-paying gig, but it did leave them tired!

"Too bad you can't have a beer," said Manny, another of the group, grinning and waving a black-colored can his way.

Nohano snorted. "No thanks," he said. "That stuff's vile, especially the used motor oil you like to drink."

The others chuckled, and Robert voiced his agreement. "I like beer as well as the next guy, but not when I can see iron filings swirling around in it."

"Hey!" protested Manny, raising the Guinness as if it were an idol to be worshipped. "These are not iron filings."

"Steel, then."

Nohano laughed and finished off his soda, sitting back in a chair and watching the faire guests all trickle out of a nearby gate. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms out. "You definitely get strong, beating that drum all the time," he commented. "Not to mention lugging equipment around all over creation because they can't keep us at one stupid stage the whole day!"

Robert chuckled, nodding his head. "Get used to it," he said. "Damn near all of them do it that way. Makes it more interesting for the guests, I guess, and gives the big groups all a chance at the bigger stages."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. But is still sucks a rock."

"Christ on a crutch," came Gregory's voice, from where he stood at the edge of the beer tent. "Will you look at those clouds? That's a hell of a storm brewing out there."

Feeling more alarmed than he should, Nohano stood quickly and joined him. Other faire workers were there too, and they began to gather just outside, looking up at the sky. It certainly did look threatening—the sky was greenish, and increasingly darker clouds were rolling in at an alarming rate.

"Wow. You don't think we're gonna be getting a hurricane, do you?" asked Aaron, the fifth member of No Quarter. "I know they're getting bashed, big time, over in Australia and Africa, but..."

"It's weird," said Manny, frowning and shaking his head. "It's weird the places that are getting hit by hurricanes. The weather just gets stranger and stranger each year. And so bloody early!"

Nohano said nothing. Not a big fan of thunderstorms to begin with, this had him more uptight than most. Something big was about to happen. Not that day, maybe, but soon, and he didn't know how he knew. It was a crazy intuition—he shook his head slowly, wondering if that dream had somehow rattled his brain.

"Guess we'd best head out, then," said Robert. "Don't wanna be driving in a bloody hurricane." They'd all picked up the word "bloody" in normal speech, partly because of Gregory and partly because they used it in their pirate personas a whole lot.

"Aw, that'd be fun," said Manny, grinning and tossing his beer can into a nearby receptacle.

Robert rolled his eyes, and headed out of the tent. "Come on, smartass...just for that, you get to help with the heavy equipment."

That was a bit of a joke, seeing as how they didn't really have any "heavy" equipment, and it took all of a half hour to get it all loaded into Manny's van.

Of course it left little room to sit. Nohano, being the youngest, was usually relegated on the floor of the van, between the two middle seats. He protested, as usual, and said that next time, he was taking the shotgun seat. "You guys won't let me drive," he complained as they drove home, "so I gotta take shotgun."

"Ha!" said Manny. "We let you drive, and we'd never make it home in one piece!" He was sitting in the front passenger seat; the van was in his name, but Robert and Gregory did all the driving. Manny didn't like to drive and Aaron had no license.

"Hey!" Nohano shot Manny a look, but didn't manage to keep the smirk from surfacing. It rather decreased the effect of his glare. "Jerk."

"That's me!" The others called him a jerk so often it was almost a pet name; he never took much offense. He took pride in it, after all!

Oddly enough, it had not yet begun to rain before the group arrived at the studio apartment they were sharing while in Irwindale. In fact, it didn't rain the entire night, though a sort of blue funk seemed to descend on the group as the night progressed. Gregory cooked macaroni and cheese, and after supper they played a game of Monopoly that Robert won, but after that, everyone fell silent.

Nohano looked out of the window only once, caught the unnatural green-tinged clouds above, and shut the curtain. "I'm going to bed," he said abruptly. Maybe he was coming down with something; that would explain having fallen asleep earlier during the faire, too.

"Night, kid," said Robert, giving Nohano's hair a wild swipe. "Hey--why d'you wear that headband out of costume, anyway?"

Nohano grinned a little and shrugged. "Keeps my hair out of my eyes. Besides, it looks cool." Nohano bade the others good night, crept into the hammock he used while traveling, and closed his eyes. Surprisingly, he fell asleep almost immediately.

---

The dreams came again that night; thankfully the tsunami dream did not return, but there were others. He dreamt of a slight-statured Asian girl with striking blue eyes walking along a highway, a backpack on her back, looking as though she'd traveled for hundreds of miles. Several people passed in cars, some of those cars looking nearly 100 years old, and Nohano was indignant that some who passed shouted jeers or insults to her in a language he didn't recognize. It was clear it wasn't polite, however, from the girl's angry words. It seemed as if Nohano watched her walking forever, before the dream shifted.

He stood in an apartment, feeling bewildered and disoriented, watching an altercation between a man and a woman. They were in the middle of a divorce, it seemed, and arguing about who "he" should live with. On catching sight of a redheaded boy off to one side, Nohano realized it was the "he" being argued about. He felt the hot burn of anger; were these really his parents? Were they arguing, right in front of their son, about who he should live with?

Finally the boy spoke in a hurt, angry voice. "Damn it, stop it! Shut up, both of you! I hate you, I'm not a—a thing! You won't make me choose!" Nearly in tears, the boy ran from the room, his astonished parents staring after them. His father hollered for him to get the hell back there, but the boy did not return, and as the mother slapped the father for speaking "that way" to the boy, the argument degenerated into physical violence. Nohano took a step forward, intending to drag them apart, but the scene shifted once more.

A stout Middle Eastern girl sat at a McDonald's with a boy whose nationality Nohano could not identify; he was tall, stocky, and had shock-white hair. The eyes behind his glasses were a strange, light blue, and his skin pale; Nohano thought he might be an albino. German, maybe? They did not speak, and Nohano wondered if they knew English. He heard the boy mutter something, and shove a burnt-looking French fry off to one side, and Nohano could not tell what language he spoke.

The boy dreamt one last time that night, of a tall, Asian boy that at first he thought was a woman because of his smooth skin and soft, black hair that went past his waist. The boy—man?-- had a boy that looked East Indian. Nohano watched as the man worked in a hangar, teaching the boy about what he was doing to repair the airplanes. Nohano approached, listening to them talk, and realized they both spoke English well, but with very distinct accents. Neither of them had been born in the United States, it was clear.

"What's wrong with it?" asked the little boy, standing on a ladder and on his tiptoes, in order to see into the engine.

"I don't know yet," answered the boy, frowning and bending over to examine the depths of the engine cavity. There was a thump, and a spat word that sounded like it must be a swear word, and a giggle from the little boy, muffled with his hand. The older boy extracted himself and stood on his ladder, frowning at the object that he held in his hand.

With sudden urgency, Nohano rushed forward to get a look at the item the boy held, and felt his whole body go cold; the boy held an orb in his hand, a small, blue orb that swirled with strange, blue mist. Nohano stared at the orb, while the rest of the dream seemed to fade out...

He sat bolt upright, looking frantically around, and realized he was no longer dreaming, and that the other members of No Quarter had also gone to sleep...hours ago, from the quiet that hung about the apartment. Nohano glanced at the clock, saw that it was four in the morning, and got up out of his hammock.

There was no sound except the faint rush of traffic from outside, and the ticking of Gregory's alarm clock. A quick glance at it told Nohano that it was set for ten—that made sense, they had no gigs the following day, and there was no reason to get up earlier.

Nohano slid to his knees on the hardwood floor to where the group had piled all their bags, and grabbed out the suitcase that held all of Nohano's personal belongings. He didn't have much in the way of belongings; he traveled too much to have a permanent lodging. He opened the suitcase up and dug beneath his clothing and a couple of his favorite books, and picked up a small, wooden box.

The box was something of an enigma to Nohano; he had been given the box on the day he left his foster home, the day he got his emancipation papers from the court. "We got this a few years ago," his foster mother had explained. "It said you were to get it when you were old enough. I honestly don't know what it is, but as you're to take responsibility for yourself from here on out, I'd say you were old enough to have whatever's inside."

She'd not known who sent it, only that the postmark had been from Japan. Nohano, intrigued, had opened it, but what was inside was a total mystery to him...until now.

Nohano opened the box now and grasped the object within. His shaking hand held a small orb, about the size of a ping pong ball, and though the mist swirling inside was red and not blue like the ball he had seen in his dream, they were an exact match.

Nohano Kalama, in his subgear. This was my best of the new Ronin pictures, and is accurate.
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