Alira's senses all came back to her at once. As usual, the first assault was overwhelming. The glare of overhead lights , the pungency of the antiseptic smell, the gurgling sound of draining vat fluids, the sudden chill biting her skin and the raw feeling of her flesh. Slowly Alira recovered from the flood of impressions and began to adjust to her surroundings.
'Welcome to the Eifyr & Co cloning facility of Elgol six Alira Tjalgard' a needlessly cheerful young assistant-medic in a corporate lab-coat announced, when the clone-vat opened to release Alira's new body. Like most employees of Eifyr & Co the medic was of Krusual descent. The strong-boned features of her face, the strip of hair running along the centre of her head, and the swirling geometry of elaborate facial tattoos made her heritage obvious.
The girl offered Alira a simple disposable coat to cover her nudity as she gingerly took her first steps with legs which had yet to learn how to properly carry the weight of a human body. The residual impressions of her recent 'death' still lingered in the memory of her nervous system. The feeling of wrenching pain and instinctive panic was receding gradually, like the blur of a bright flash fading from one's vision 'They claim that your last moments of being podded will not be transferred, but it never works out quite as advertised .' Alira bemoaned the shortcomings of instant neural remapping.
'Do you wish to commission a new replacement clone with us right away?' the Krusual girl asked, and presented a contract-pad to Alira. The young woman's flowing facial tattoos twisted with her practiced customer-friendly smile 'We now offer a five percent discount for repeat customers' she added.
Alira groaned and touched her index finger to the appropriate spot under the contract. A soft chime announced the completion of the transaction. 'I need a drink' she rasped with a vocal tract still unaccustomed to forming words.
'As the responsible medical attendant, I have to advise you against the consumption of alcohol immediately after clone activation.' the girl cautioned. 'Your neural pathways are still settling into their new state and …'
'Well tell me where I can get dressed and I'll find the way to the next bar myself' Alira interrupted her with a scowl.
'Certainly.' the Krusual medic offered and motioned towards an exit 'Right through here'
***
Keram's sleek little Slicer frigate rolled, banked and swerved with his frantic attempts to avoid the scorching laserbeams emitted by the two ships chasing him. The curved, sharp outlines of the pursuing craft made them look like birds-of-prey with their wings tucked in a lethal dive. Their pincer-like front parts made them look no less menacing. Only seconds earlier they had torn Alira's scout-frigate apart effortlessly.
Momentarily a direct hit threw Keram's small craft off-course with it's impact.
Alarm systems screamed at him and simulated pain shot through his nervous system, as parts of the armor plating melted off his ship.
'Damn Legions! Let me see you match this one' Keram inwardly growled as he forced his ship into a seemingly impossible turn toward his pursuers. Inside his capsule, he gritted his teeth while overheating the afterburner in an effort to gain as much speed as he could. His plan relied on such velocity that the heavier guns of his attackers would be unable to track the small craft he piloted.
His approach gave one enemy ship the opportunity to ensnare him with a stasis web , but – as Keram had expected – their next bout of energy discharges missed him as he slipped through the gap between the two ships, still at sufficient speed.
'Only one good hit' he urged himself on and targeted the electronic subsystem of the strategic cruiser that was slowing him down. He forced the capacitor coils of his own lasers into overdrive and timed his actions as best as he could.
He fired once, twice, in the mere seconds he had. A series of small explosions ripped through his target right at the point he had aimed for.
In his pod's liquid-filled bubble, he clenched a fist in triumph as his ship lurched forward into full speed. He had disabled his opponent's webifier with a direct hit.
The two pursuers overshot him and did their best to turn around. Their heavily armored ships were forced into a wide turn by the pull of inertia, though.
There, he was out of warp disruptor range. Keram engaged the warpdrive, but already the laser turrets of his adversaries had tracked him again, and now he was flying away in a straight line. An easy target.
***
Sandrielle and Sylera faced each other on the mat of a practice room in the recreational wing of the station quarters. Both of them were wearing the same loose-fitting clothes suitable for martial-arts training, but apart from that similarity, there could hardly have been a more contrasted pairing of opponents: One with the lean body of a woman who had just recently matured, the other honed by experience and training. One with her luxuriously long hair of ivory colour slung around her head in a long braid, the other with her dark tresses freely flowing over her shoulders. The acute-featured, fair-skinned face of one woman, focusing it's gray eyes on the other's tan, oval visage with it's dark irises.
Both women were poised to attack. Sylera's stance showed the tension of mental and physical preparation. Sandrielle faced her with a calm and relaxed posture of heightened awareness.
In one quick sequence of movements, Sylera switched her stance and shot forward with a right-hand jab to the other woman's face. A mere distraction from the left body-shot she threw at Sandrielle's abdomen with a scream of exertion. To Sylera's surprise, her left met the obstacle of her own right arm, which Sandrielle had deflected into the path of the second attack.
The Gallente woman sidestepped, and her right palm connected with Sylera's face. The momentum of Sylera's attack carried her center of gravity further on it's path, while her head and upper body were pushed in the other direction. The counteracting forces made her feet fly off the ground when Sandrielle somehow kicked them out from underneath her. For a split second Sylera was suspended in mid-air before she was slammed down heavily, connecting with the back of her head first. Sandrielle was now leaning down on her prone opponent, the right palm still resting on the younger woman's face.
Slowly Sandrielle stood up while Sylera tried to get her bearings.'Your skull would now most likely be fractured if this floor had a hard surface. In any case you would certainly be unconscious and defenseless.' the Gallente woman observed calmly.
Sylera groggily stood up and shook her head in an effort to dispel the little bursts of illusory lights from her field of vision.
'Your attack was very predictable, even more so because your intentions were already readable well ahead of your movements.' Sandrielle continued in a plain instructive tone, carefully chosen not to humiliate, but to educate.
'How would you be able to tell what I am going to do before I move?' Sylera asked with open-minded interest apparent from her voice. Sandrielle smiled faintly, she had put the girl into the right mindset.
'It is a question of observation …' Sandrielle began. Before she could continue, though, an alarm sounded. Quickly she tipped the small short-range communicator worked into an ear-stud. 'What's going on?' she asked briskly.
'Keram is coming in hot. His ship is practically falling apart, and they got Alira!' came the reply from the crewman on lookout duty.
The two women looked at each other briefly, then they dashed out of the room.
No comments:
Post a Comment