An Event in Three Lives
"It is a jungle, full of chattering and noise. Full of things that grow and eat and crawl. Every living thing competing for it's own life. Things decaying and rotting and killing. Disease and death.
But it is beautiful. The opera and dance of it. The ebb and flow and what comes between. The brief moments of safety or danger. For they are the same, safety and danger. They define each other and give each other purpose..."
-A Study of a Species of War YC103.07.12 UC
123.43 LOCAL
AVENOD
PLANET V
Shots through the canopy send pulped vegetation flying. Perfect little opals of superheated gas. The Kameira squeezes further into the black mud of the jungle, the hard corners of her combat suit scraping against roots and rocks. Vibrant greenery against a deep blue sky. More shots, the warble and wine translating perfectly through the helmet. Leaf fragments fall aflame, smoke dancing in the breeze. The smell of burning plant matter adds to the rot.
HUD alert: incoming, 102.6 meters to the 1 o'clock. Shot counter indicating 484 rounds fired.
Those are the shots from a 3mm light hybrid repeater, 500 round capacity. The echo of Knight Captain Balvanz's voice in her head, 'A sport competitive repeater team can reload in sixteen seconds... Kameiras, ..you have
ten.
A hissing warble, the crack of wood. 489 rounds. She fills her lungs, suit filter and damp jungle. Fingers stab into the earth, a root gripped, toes digging in. Muscles tense and flex, she could be a statue to the beauty of the human form.
497, the heat of the plasma. She springs. Up, over a log, the slap of wet vegetation, feet slipping in the mud for a terrifying instant. 500 goes wide. Dodging a tree, hips thrown out to keep her momentum, her body leaned forward, her legs start to burn, breath deafening. Jumping over a root muscles so tense they feel slow. Power in the thighs, calves, make the distance.
There they areHer knife is in her hand. 102.6 meters, 7.4 seconds. They haven't seen her. The gun is hot, the charge chamber open, making heat waves in the air.
Her shoulder hits the assistant gunner, a young man. His eyes are wide with shock as he stares into the faceless helmet of the Kameira. Her left hand curls gently around the back of his neck an armored knee flying into his stomach. He is on his back, one hand keeping his torso up the other between them. The knife is almost sweet, a glimmer of silver between two lovers in a torrent of greens and browns.
The nanosecond when the blade is just touching his throat, it's mono-edge dimpling the skin. His eyes staring into the blank mask, recoiling in fear and desperation. Her fingers keep him steady, reassure him as the edge does it's work. A surge of warmth over her hand.
The gunner is still turning in surprise. Her left hand slides away to let one man begin the longest fall of his life. Her right continues the arc, the angle of her torso is wrong and he throws himself backwards into a fern to escape. Hands fumbling at his hip for a sidearm, this is no longer training for him, he should have practiced harder.
The Kameira rolls off the body keeping knife tucked close. Left hand in the litter, right hand gripping tight around the blade, she pounces, uncoiling, stretching.
His sidearm comes out, muzzle brightening as plasma builds to lethal temperatures.
In a brief instant, both accept that they are about to die. Their whole lives have come down to arcs, velocities, and decisions already made. A moment shared, he admires the shape of her, his mind wandering back to the shape of his wife even as a part of him recognizes the insanity of it. Their bodies collide, now he remembers when he was attacked by a slaver hound in training. The smell of sweat and plasma, a tangle of limbs and a brief struggle.
The heat from the blaster pistol is intense. A locking of limbs and a twist of a torso. Strength meets strength, angles and grips. It becomes strategy.
The knife tip slides across his body armor, the strange sensation of drop as it reaches the edge and she is pushing at air. She aims a knee into his groin, meets his thigh, but it is enough. His arm moves an inch and she pushes the knife forward. Into the gap under his armpit designed by a research team and tested by troopers for comfort...
Pushing the knife, tense, to balance the force on the point. It hits resistance and slides deeper, resistance, a pop then slides in easy.
A cry of pain as he arches his back and screams. She lets go and the armored knuckles of her suit meet his face. The Kameira pushes his arms away as she beats his face over and over, she can feel bone crunching as the impacts rock her arm. Hit, hit, hit. He starts to go limp so she grabs his body armor in the front for balance. Bang bang bang bang, he isn't moving but she keeps striking until her arm is numb, seeing red.
Until she sits back, straddling him as her chest heaves and vapor leaves the suit filter in puffs. The Kameira looks down at the man 'Inyuro' his armor says. It was most intimate thing he has ever done with anyone. Married in suppressive fire, their honeymoon in a firing position.
Divorced eight seconds later.
God was the only witness when the two people met. One who fought for home and family, to make a safe home and a bright future. The other fought to kill, for the challenge, the endorphin rush. The blessings of god to make the nightmares and hunger mean nothing.
She twists the knife to pull it out, stands, looking to the east. The objective. Dark green aircraft fly overhead and the jungle waves underneath them as is if greeting. She cloaks, systems popping and a flash of light as the refractors form the bubble . The suit heats against her skin, the whir of cooling fans in her ear. The Kameira was never there, branches and vines moving to betray the passing of a ghost.
The Kameira forgets the name on the man's uniform before she is a meter away.
A young woman and her baby in Botane receive a letter.
In later retellings, she forgets about the first man entirely.
But his brother never does as he drowns himself in drink.
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Topic: [Short Story] An Event in Three Lives (Read 1843 times)