Chapter 5: Abducted

Dumb, shocked faces stared down at me. Unable to make a sound. My eyes found my master—my old master—staring down at me with the same uncomprehending face I saw on all the others.

"Hey, what's the plan now?" I whispered through the ear-piece. But there was silence. "Hello. Come on, you can't abandon me. I just defeated the greatest fighter on the planet for you."

My muscles relaxed as the sync rings deactivated, leaving only a minor tingling in my limbs, and I regained independent movement of my body. It felt odd, suddenly.

A grating noise pulled my attention to the large blast door through which the Quwallie had entered. As soon as it was open a contingent of guards in full uniform came marching out, pistols in holsters, blasters strapped across their chests, and faces covered by masks that offered them an in-depth recon of the environment and potential threats. They surrounded me, each one pulling their blaster and pointing it at me. I threw up my hands, which was a pointless gesture. Even if it had been really me and not Akiko who'd taken down the Quwallie, what did they think I could do against so many weapons?

"Tell me, boy." A voice came from the black interior of the waiting chamber. Vaughan appeared, walking between the guards one casual step at a time. "Who was on the other end of those sync rings?"

I tried to contain my panic. Was it that obvious? No, I didn't think so. Maybe in the beginning of the fight, but after I got used to it I let Akiko take over my body and we worked well together, or so I thought.

I couldn't respond.

"If you won't tell me then I have no use for you." He smiled, his eyes bright and malicious, like he already knew there was no way I could answer that. "Kill him."

My body tensed.

Five things happened at once.

The guards all stood to attention, getting ready to move in when one of the guards turned their blaster away from me and shot another guard, sending him flying back across the sand, breaking the circle. The other guards, too stunned to react, stared at the guard who had fired, giving the mysterious infiltrator time to pick off two more, until they realized what was going on and began returning fire.

I dove to the ground and covered my head, not knowing where to flee when a second guard broke free from the ring and dove for Vaughan, tackling him to the ground.

In the stands, a short figure wearing the loose, tan-colored sun-cloak of a night-raider broke free from the fleeing crowd and leaped down the wall, racing into the arena and towards us.

From the waiting room behind Vaughan, a black figure lunged out of the shadows. He was bigger than even the Quwallie, but his movements were swift, full of purpose and power. He was clad in all in black and moved like a shadow, hidden behind a hood and mask on his face, except his eyes, which shone pale green. He plucked the guard from Vaughan and sent the figure sprawling into the other guards, knocking them all down. The guard who had been firing stopped, obviously not wanting to mistake their partner.

"What took you so long, Quwallie?" Vaughan said, and I could hear the smile in his words.

My head whipped up, and I stared at the beast of a man now standing in front of Vaughan. The Quwallie? Then that meant … I looked at the man I'd defeated earlier, still passed out on the sand. It had been a set-up from the start.

The two traitor guards removed their helmets, nodded at each other, and began firing at all the other guards. I only had time to notice that one was a different brunette girl and the other an older man before the firing began, and it was back down into the sand.

The figure in the night-raider's cloak had crossed the arena now, and she—Akiko, I recognized—lunged at the real Quwallie, catching him off guard, and knocking his blaster away.

The brunette reached over and grabbed Vaughan, pulling him away from the Quwallie, and the older man followed her, picking off the remaining guards.

The Quwallie attempted to break past Akiko, with no luck. She had a knife and was dancing all around him, slashing and slicing.

"Tammy!" the brunette girl shouted with a hand pressed to her ear.

Vaughan was taller than she was and struggling to break away. He caught her in the face with an elbow, knocking her a step back, and freeing himself.

Suddenly the air and sand around me began shaking followed by a low hum that eventually dominated the air, and I looked upwards to see the outline of a space ship appearing over the lip of the arena. From its hull something detached, and a wide three-clawed hook shot out, landing in the sand, not too far from where the girl was standing, tending her bleeding nose.

Vaughan was fleeing. It didn't take me long to realize the bargaining chip to my freedom was sprinting away from me. And if Akiko didn't get him, if none of the others did, they'd leave without me, and I'd stay here ... still a slave and, even worse, still a condemned slave.

On my feet in a flash, I chased after him. A guard, one of the real ones, saw me get up, and his weapon rose to meet me. I shoulder-barged him out the way and down to his ass, never stopping, sprinting after Vaughan.

I was faster than him, and there was never a doubt in my mind if I was going to catch him. He didn't have the same thought apparently because just as I dove at his waist, my weight bringing both of us down, I saw the look of surprise on his face. Vaughan scrambled to get up, but I clutched his legs in a bear hug. His punches rained down again and again on the crown of my head, but I clung on. A second later a shadow stood over me, and something reached down and smashed Vaughan's face. Then I was yanked off him, and he was pulled to his feet by the old man. From my seat in the sand I looked up to see the brunette, her teeth red with blood, smiling widely at me. I couldn't help but smile back. Her brown hair was long and glossy, and her eyes were a pretty hazel. I guessed she was a maybe a year younger than me. She held out a hand for me and pulled me up.

"Hi, I'm Rei!" she pronounced cheerfully with a firm handshake, before dragging me along with her. Although she took me by surprise, her smile was genuine enough to trust, and I followed her compliantly. The old man already had Vaughan subdued in his grasp ahead of us.

All the guards were sprawled across the arena grounds, even as Vaughan began struggling again. But between the girl and the man, he had no chance of escape. I jogged back with them to the hook that had impaled the sand.

Now I could see Akiko and the Quwallie. She fought like a demon. She was shorter than me, and he was as big as a monolith, but against her he seemed unwieldy. So it was truly something to witness as she turned all of his strength against him. As she dove and dashed around him, his movements seemed slow and uncoordinated, and she moved so fast that by the time he was attacking she was somewhere else. His reach didn't matter because she never stepped away from him, staying close to his body where she could move faster, where she was always attacking, where he couldn't grab her.

She was something else. Unstoppable.

"Tammy!" Rei shouted from our location near the foot of the hook. "We need another hook! Get Aki!"

I stood there awkwardly with them, not wanting to stay but unsure if I was welcome, or what I was getting myself into.

Another hook shot out from the side of the hovering ship, landing beside Akiko and the Quwallie.

The older man attached Vaughan's restrained wrists to the cable and then attached himself to Vaughan, holding on to the cable, their feet standing on the wide hook in the sand. He gave it a firm tug, and it began to reel in, slowly moving out of the sand and upwards, carrying Vaughan and the man away.

As we watched them ascend, another hook came sprawling down and landed right in front of us. I looked to Rei, her nose still bloody, and wondered what to say or do next. But she flashed me another smile and lunged for me, grabbing my collar and pulling me close. She reached out and snatched the line and soon we were both being lifted. I screamed as my feet left the ground and staggered to find good foot placement on the hook as I clung to the girl.

Now that the Quwallie had noticed Vaughan's capture, both he and Akiko were trying to reach the last remaining hook. They arrived at the same time, and Akiko sprinted lithely up the cable. The Quwallie couldn't match her agility, so he grabbed the cable with one hand, both feet resting on the wide hook, as it rose from the sand. Akiko stuck her knife in her mouth, grasped the cable, and pulled herself up with both hands, twisting in the air and wrapping her legs around the line. Upside down, she met the Quwallie's dagger with her own knife. Their fight didn't last long. Akiko grabbed the cable in one hand, let go with her legs, and swung out and down, catching the Quwallie off guard and kicking him down, onto the red sand.

I couldn't believe what I just saw. Here I thought our fight with the fake Quwallie was amazing but her… Akiko … by herself … she was something beyond amazing, and she made it look easy.

I watched her until we were thrust onto a wall of some sort of red gel substance that decreased our speed before the cables carried us inside the ship, and we let go as they retracted into the ship. We were in a large spacious area, something like a cargo hold because there were large crates scattered and stacked along the walls.

Rei released me, and I stood still, mildly in shock, as she grabbed a pistol-type weapon off a nearby rack and pointed it at the gel wall we just came through. Motionlessly she waited, and just a moment later, Vaughan fell through the wall, followed closely by the old man.

"Rei, take care of him. I'm going to help Tammy," The man ordered before taking off through a corridor.

"No problem," she responded.

A rumbling vibration built up beneath my feet, and the ship swayed before taking off, quickly building speed.

"Hello there," Rei said mockingly as she pointed the gun at Vaughan. "Tammy, our cargo has arrived."

I looked for the, so far, unseen Tammy, but there was no one around. Instead, a second female voice echoed throughout the ship. "Understood."

A circle on the ship's floor opened up.

"Well, get in!" Rei ordered Vaughan.

He didn't seem to understand what she was saying, but he understood her gesture. He sneered but turned around to look in the hole. With no hesitation, she kicked him in. I wasn't sure how far down it was, but I heard him moaning at the bottom. The circle in the floor closed.

The gel wall released another person: Akiko.

I stared at her open-mouthed. I couldn't think of anything to say. She'd saved my life. She'd beaten that thick slab of muscle that somehow passed as a man and then defeated an even bigger slab of muscle while hanging upside down on a cable. What could you say to a girl like that?

"What?" she barked at me, her cloak now tucked underneath her arm. "Don't just stare at me."

I snapped my mouth shut but couldn't look away from her. Up close she seemed so … normal. There was no sign of the viciousness I had seen her fight with, none of that sheer brutality or strategic thinking with which she had controlled me through the sync rings.

She gave up with a heavy sigh. "Whatever." Then she twisted on her heel and walked away, down a corridor that stretched off into the distance.

I stared at her back until the mysterious Tammy spoke again, interrupting my lame staring. "Please brace yourself: we are leaving this planet's atmosphere."

The ship jittered for a moment, then came to a sudden halt. I almost fell over, but Rei caught me. I felt the explosion of a dozen forming bruises and wondered why my body was suddenly so delicate. When I tried to right myself, my body strained against me, as though in active protest over its condition. My limbs ached with a sharp fatigue, and when I tried to use them I found they were no longer responding to me.

"Rei, I know we didn't want the guy to die, but why did you bring him along?" Akiko stopped and asked over her shoulder.

"They would've killed him later if we left him there!" Rei replied, hugging my arm. I tried to refrain from crying out with pain from her hug.

Akiko frowned at her but then looked down at her hand. "Oh yeah, I forgot to turn these off." She fiddled with the sync ring on her wrist.

All of a sudden, I felt like I'd burst into flames, like my body was encased in a metal suit that had been sitting under the two Sola suns during the time of alignment. It was too much to bear all at once, and I fell with a thud to the ground. I willed myself to breathe, but my vision was already fading.

The last thing I heard was "Oops."