The Bright Black Sea (15 page)

The tarmac was quiet. To the east, a flare and the
faint, muffled roar of a rocket blasting off from the passenger
port, and closer, on the far side of the tarmac – the sharp
whistling roar of a yacht taxiing – neither did more than highlight
the smothering silence. We quickly put the brightness of the access
point behind. Following a faint pedestrian walkway painted on the
tarmac, we crossed a wide taxiway and into the darker space between
a double row of parked yachts and snow banks. The rhythm of Min's
metallic foot falls, and my own shuffling stomps seemed the last
sounds left in the world. I had my exoskeleton powered on but it
had been a long day in gravity. It was running down and I was
rather dragging.

The first whistle came from behind us as we started
across the taxiway beyond the first row of boats. It was followed
by an answering chorus of others from every directions. Min
froze.

'Wharf rats.' she said quietly.

Wharf rats, a spaceer term for the assorted gangs
inhabiting the cracks and shadows of every port – packs of dock and
warehouse thieves, smugglers, dealers, pimps and crimps, loan
sharks and hired thugs. Stray from the bright lights of Star Gate
Boulevard into the tenements beyond or into the maze of hangars,
warehouses and transport hubs of Port Prime at night, and you're
likely to make the acquaintance of the wharf rats. But ...

'What are they doing in the Yacht Club tarmac? I'd
have thought the Club would rules against wharf rats...' I said in
a low voice.

'I'd have thought so too, That's what I'm paying dues
for. I'll have to have a talk with the committee. But those were
certainly wharf rat calls. I suppose any security barrier can be
breached. If you can breach a warehouse security system, the Club
grounds might not be all that challenging. The real question is why
they've run the risk of coming so far afield – so dangerously out
of their dockland holes. This is not the place you'd want to steal
a boat from, it can be tracked too easily. And there's little else
to steal...It doesn't make any sense,' she mused, and reaching for
her pocket, added, 'Let's get moving. If you have a billyblade, get
it in hand. I don't have a good feeling about this...'

'Back to the terminal. It's closest,' I pointed out
as I pulled out the short, heavy, handle of my billyblade from my
jacket pocket. 'We've nothing they'd want, so I don't imagine
they'd put much effort into preventing us. And may I also suggest
we call club security or the Guard?'

'You can try, but I'm sure they're using jammers...
Standard procedure.'

I touched my comlink but heard only a loud hiss of
static from my implanted speaker....

'The terminal wouldn't give us any protection, better
strike out for the
Ghost
where we'd be sure to be safe once
aboard her. It's not all that much further. And since they seem all
around us, there's no avoiding them, if they decide to tackle
us...'

'Right.' I said shifting and tightened my grip on my
bundle of purchases, grabbing it the middle to give me something
like a shield. 'But let's pile some on the gee's.'

I'd have retreated to the lighted terminal, but she's
my owner and time was of the essence. And if the pack was looking
for a fight, we'd not avoid one in either case.

She shook out her billyblade and started out briskly,
her long legs covering meters with every stride.

I started after her, running, activating my
billyblade, holding down the handle down to allow the D-matter
metal to flow out and solidified into a prefigured form, a forward
weighted, half meter long, blunt edged blade – the self-defense
weapon of choice for spaceers. It's handy, effective and legal
everywhere since it's (somehow) classified as non-lethal. Closed,
it fits in a pocket, or in a fist if that's how you like to fight,
and extended, it's a blunt edged blade of an indestructible mutated
metal that can deliver bone breaking blows. Confine your blows to
your opponent's arms and legs and you'll stay clear of official
trouble on self defense grounds. Using lethal (classified) weapons
on the worlds of the Unity will get you surgically de-sexed and a
life sentence in an unsupervised criminal preserve – usually an
enclosed valley on some airless moon, commonly known as
Felon's
Rift
– though the official name varied planet to planet.

'I don't intend to stop and gossip,' Min said as I
caught up to her as we plunged into the shadows between the next
line of boats. She quickly proved her point.

Two slim dark figures leaped on to the path from the
shadows of the boats, bars in hand. A wharf rat's scope of
operations does not justify the risks associated with a lethal
weapon so they fight like spaceers with pipes, bars and
billyblades. Dressed in dark, close fitting garments, faces hidden
in bands of black cloth, save their eyes and mouths, they stood
braced to receive us. They whistled again and the pack responded.
Min didn't hesitate. She leaped forward on one of her long,
bird-like legs and brought the other up with a sweeping kick
landing on the jaw of the wharf rat before her, sending him
sprawling, the half meter bars he was holding flying out of his
hands and landing in a clatter on the tarmac.

I followed her, half a second behind, taking the
first heavy blow of my opponent's bar on my bundle next to my head
as I made a low swipe for his forward knee. He tried to block it
with his other club, but was off balance and my billyblade got in
crushing the side of his knee. I stumbled with the force of his
blow on my bundle shield and my low swing at this knee, but
recovered and leaped over his falling form, reached a second line
of assailants who'd appeared a few meters beyond. Min was already
engaging the three of them. Clearly she hadn't spent all her time
on Kimsai meditating, and with the momentum on her side had already
flung one to the side with a kick and a blow to his shoulder. I
plunged in beside her, connecting with a blow to the arm of her
second opponent, and flung my shield arm up to block a blow from
the wharf rat before me.

I've been a student of Barlan Dray, a master of the
Mycolmtre's sword and dagger style of fencing throughout my years
aboard the ship since it was an interesting way to exercise,
requiring speed, reaction, anticipation and precise control over
your weapons and body, all of which came to my aid now. But a
bundle is not a short blade and a billyblade is not a long sword.
The billyblade requires sweeping motions with your body behind it
to give it the heft it lacks, so there's not a lot of actual
duel-blade style actions that translates into this type of fight.
And , too, I'd mostly sparred with Barlan in free fall, though a
rush of fear and adrenalin was doing a lot to counter the weary
weight of gravity.

Even as the blow landed on the bundle, I plunged,
semi-stumbling, forward, billyblade extended to strike him in the
his chest. We both lurched to my right, but my momentum carried me
into him, sending him to the ground while stopping my fall. I gave
him a blow to the arm nearest me and leaped past him out into the
taxiway.

Min spun and gave a sweeping kick to a wharf rat who
had come up unnoticed behind me, sending him flying. I stumbled out
into the taxiway beside her, and we started running briskly up the
middle of the lane, she looping nimbly on her long legs as the
wharf rats whistled signals around us in the fog. I chugged along
beside her, breathing hard. Only my exoskeleton working at top
speed kept me up with her and she was likely holding back. We'd
perhaps a hundred yards to go to reach the
Ghost
, and only
one more row of parked boats to cross on our left.

A dark figure half stumbled out of the fog. I gave a
downward chop with my billyblade to an extended arm and continued
on without a pause. I heard his blade clatter to the tarmac behind
me. Then two dark figures materialized out of the fog before us. We
did not hesitate, but plunged ahead to take them, with the whistles
of the pack following us.

Our early, relatively easy success was likely due to
the fact that we were dealing with the younger or more stupid wharf
rats. The boys and girls of the gang. Coming in contact with the
two before us was an altogether different experience, these two
were faster, smarter and an order of magnitude more dangerous. My
opponent was a female, who easily parried my first several blows
while delivering several nearly catastrophic ripostes – one I just
managed to parry with my bundle and the other only just deflected
with my billyblade, nearly ripping it out of my hand. The relative
lightness of my billyblade made fencing with her solid billy club
iffy, since she could muscle my blade out of line. I did, however,
have more body mass to put behind my light weapon than she had to
put behind her heavier billy club so that I could move my weapon a
little faster and with enough force to mostly counter hers.

Our clubs clanged back and forth for several seconds,
but the longer we battled, the more time the pack had to come up on
us from behind. I sought desperately, but ineffectively, to get
past her, but she did it for me. I fell for a high feint on my left
side and could not get my bundle down in time to block her low blow
to the side of my left knee. It should have taken me down with a
smashed leg, but her billy club hit the exoskeleton rib running
along the outside of my leg with a clang, sending my legs sliding
out from under me, the leg numb, but unbroken. My response was
already underway as she struck her blow. I swept down with my
billyblade at her low arm as it struck my leg, momentarily trapping
it against my leg, my half fall giving even more force. The blow no
doubt smashed her wrist, sending her billy bouncing to the tarmac
as I ended up on my knees, stunned. She, in shearing pain, dropped
her other billy that had been poised over her head to deliver her
final blow and also collapsed to the ground before me.

I saw Min connect a flying kick to her opponents
outstretched arm, spinning him around and continued the spin,
delivering a crunching billyblade blow to his shoulder sending him
flailing to the ground. She gave me a wild glance and breathlessly
pointed to the darkness between the two parked boats to our left. I
nodded. She turned and bounded for the gap. I scrambled to my feet
and followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see more of the
pack emerge out of the fog not ten meters away.

We plunged into the shadow. A leap took Min over the
snow bank between the two rows of boats. Two figures stepped out
from the shadows of the boats beyond the taxiway – slim dark
silhouettes against the brighter fog of the taxiway. One of the
silhouettes raised an arm and aiming the faint blue projection beam
of a darter at Min and snapped off half a dozen shots, as fast as
the darter could charge the dart.

Min's slim body was outlined in a bright blue
electric storm of light as the plasma darts struck her and
exploded, rapidly, one after the other. Her body twisted,
collapsing backward into the snow bank. The figure briefly watched
her fall, turned to me, standing, frozen in shock. The darter's
faint projection beam swung to me, brightening as it crossed my
eyes to come to rest on my forehead even as the second silhouette
reacted, who, like me, must have been frozen in shock.

Blue light. Very bright. Very hot. Then nothing.

My face was in the snow. I couldn't have been out for
long – the blue flashes were still etched in my retinas. I gathered
my wits and strength, pushed myself up to my knees and looked
around. My harsh breathing was loud in the muffled silence. I
appeared to be alone, the wharf rats were at least hidden by the
fog, perhaps watching from the shadows. Not that I could do
anything about that.

I knelt in the cold snowbank, deep in the darkness
between the two boats. Ahead, the lighter grey of the taxi lane. I
looked back, my battered package, our billyblades and my smoldering
cap lay scattered across the wet pavement behind me. Min was a
sprawled shape in the sooty snowbank two meters to my right. A curl
of steam drifting up from her outstretched arm where the last
plasma darts had struck her. I tried to stand, but my exoskeleton
motors were dead. It was easier to crawl over to her. She was lying
twisted in the snowbank. Not moving. I pulled her over, face up,
her legs clanking together as her body dragged one over the other.
Steam and smoke rose from the two black holes in her jacket where
the other plasma darts struck her.

Bloody. Blasted. Neb. Her eyes were open, but
unseeing. She was perfectly still.

I've only been in a few brief downside brawls, never
a plasma darter fight. I know plasma darts – basically tiny
super-capacitors projected by a drive beam, come in various sizes
and could be charged in a range of energy levels from stun to
un-revivable lethal, but I've only seen them in fiction vids.
Still, from the intense blue fireworks the darts produced when they
hit her and discharged their electrical charge, I had to believe
they were lethal. I was alive only because the dart flew high,
hitting my cap's badge, carrying off the cap to break contact with
me a split second before it discharged its immense store of
electrical energy and so, merely stunned me in the blast. But Min
had been hit squarely, half a dozen times. I stared at her pale
face and dead eyes. Think, Wil, think.

I touched my com link, but it was dead. Useless.
Likely fried in the plasma burst. I'd have to summon help from the
boat.

I glanced around. Still no activity, no alarm – just
smothering stillness. The wharf rats must've fled, since using the
darter in the attack, everyone involved will be neutered and sent
to Felon's Rift. Luckily, for me, anyway, they didn't stay to make
sure.