Jade Dancer by DezoPenguin

Chapter 2

"Get down!" Tane shouted at the girl in the green minidress. Amazingly enough, she obeyed at once, dropping prone. Maybe it was because she thought he was pointing the gun at her, but for whatever reason it worked. His line of fire cleared, he pumped three shots into the male Force at the other end of the corridor. Bloodstains blossomed on the front of his elaborate brocade jacket and he dropped, whatever Photon frame he was wearing evidently unable to stand up to the Yasminkov.

The Newman girl turned her head in surprise to see what Tane had been shooting at, then back at Tane.

"You're not...with them?"

He shook his head.

"Just an innocent bystander."

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank Heaven; I thought you were..."

He nodded.

She was shaking as she got to her feet, looking not at him but at the dead RAmar she'd finished off just as Tane had rounded the corner. He knew the signs; the rush of battle was wearing off and the realization of I just killed someone was starting to set in, shock replacing adrenaline. He grabbed her shoulder.

"Don't think about it now." He pushed, turning her body so she faced him. "Don't. You did what had to be done. These slags are killing anyone that crosses their path."

"This one..." she stammered. She had a pretty voice, Tane noticed, a bit deeper and richer than most Newman females, and the emerald-green dress suited her bronze skin and dark hair. "He forced his way into my room and tried to kill me."

"Then it's damned lucky you know how to swing a mean bar." How had she done that, anyway? A trained Ranger wielding a Photon saber beaten by a whore with a two-foot metal bar. "What is that, anyway?" he asked, partly out of curiosity but mostly to distract her.

"Towel rack," she said sheepishly. "I'd loosened it in its mount in case someone bribed a bouncer to let him come back here and try something."

"Smart you." "Who are these people? What's happening?"

Tane shrugged.

"Search me. They're pros and they're after someone or something, and they don't really care how they get it, that's obvious. We've got to get out of here before we become collateral damage." He looked at her again, then at the fried lock plate next to the door. "I'd tell you to hide, but if they're blasting open doors, who knows what's safe?" Tane sighed. This was crazy. He was here on business, and other people's problems kept getting in his way.

Tane bent down, picked up the dead man's saber, and handed it to the Newman girl.

"Here, take that and stay behind me. And you might want to take off that eye patch. You're not going to get a chance to play yo-ho-ho-and-a-barrel-of-fun with whomever you were expecting, now, and you're going to need your depth perception."

She glared at him furiously.

"It's not for playing pirate games, you idiot!" she snapped. "Or do you think you can see out of this?" She grabbed at the patch and yanked it up. The eye socket was about thirty degrees off horizontal, the skin around it knotted and twisted, the eye itself blank white without iris or pupil. She tugged the patch back down into place, covering up the injury.

"I'm sorry," Tane said quietly. "I didn't realize."

"Well, why would you?" she said, still angry. "Who'd think a pretty-body Newman whore was a deformed freak who has to cover her face to do business?"

"You're not a freak," Tane said, "That's stupid talk and you know it. I made a bad assumption based on who you were, I admit; if you'd been a hunter I'd never have made the crack." Though he had known a hunter or two who'd actually worn an eye patch as an affectation, it wasn't generally the case. "But you don't need to go off on self-pity because I acted like an ass. Especially not now. Okay?"

She nodded. Her visible eye was wet and bright. Smooth one, Tane, you made her cry, he told himself angrily, even though he knew it was as much stress and fear as his own stupidity.

"Okay." She took the saber. "Can we get out through the club?"

"No, there's another bunch coming that way. At least we know there's three down in the group that came in the back."

"Three?"

"These two, and I gunned one earlier."

He checked the Yasminkov's ammo. Sixteen shots left out of twenty. That was the downside to non-Photon guns; they needed physical ammo which had to be reloaded much more often than a Photon pack. Tane didn't even have an extra clip. He'd prepared for minor trouble, not an urban war. "What's your name, anyway?" he asked the girl.

"Jade. You?"

"Malcolm Tane. Now, since you know this place's layout a lot better than I do, how about you point us to the back door? I don't want to have to take out the rest of these goons."

"Team B, status?" Ralin subvocalized over his commset. "Status, Team B? Jast, where the frak are you?" When no answer was forthcoming, he cursed audibly.

"What's wrong?" Elysse asked.

"Team B's gone silent. Either their commsets are out or they are."

"Think Vanis had something waiting for them?" Zayora asked. She was always the nervous one.

"Probably. Keep an eye out."

They'd only had to dispatch two more of Vanis's security people on the way to her office, which implied that Team B had at least occupied the rest of them. The armored door was sealed and locked; since it was clearly a security door, blasting the lock place would just confirm the lock status. A good electronics specialist like Leon could have wired it open, but that would have taken time, so Ralin had made different plans.

"Type: D, blow the door."

The hulking android made no reply, but instead unhooked a heavy tubular gun fitted with a screw-tip conical shell. The others stepped back and the RAcast fired the Drill Launcher into the door. The screw-tip penetrated the armor plate, making the shell stick, and the Photon explosive inside took care of the rest. A moment after the door fell in, gunshots sizzled through it into the hall, but Type: D's armor, backed by Elysse's Deband tech, handled the impacts with minor effect. Zayora fired into the room, using the android as cover, and the gunfire stopped abruptly. Ralin led his team through the door, ignoring the corpses of the two guards as thoroughly as he did the stylish decor, concentrating only on two things: the plump woman with silver-gray hair behind the U-shaped desk, and the computer console with free-floating holographic screens on that desk to her right.

"Give it to me and you get to live," Ralin snapped.

Vanis made no pretense of misunderstanding.

"Don't make me laugh. I was a dead woman the moment you came through the door."

Ralin nodded.

"Give it to me and you get to die cleanly."

Vanis's lips curved in a half-smile.

"That's better," she said wryly.

Ralin didn't like it. She was too calm, the calmness of one who has accepted death. From what he knew of her, that didn't make sense. Not in the few seconds since they'd blown open the door.

"Computer," she said, "run Omega."

The desk vaporized into white-hot flame, taking the rest of the room with it.

The saber felt weird in her hand, Jade thought as she pointed out the path through the halls to her rescuer. Because she wasn't used to thinking of swords as a weapon, she didn't understand at first, but once she imagined using the saber as a dance prop it made sense. The Photon blade, being energy, didn't have any weight, and it threw the expected balance off. The idea of applying what she'd been taught to actual battle was new enough by itself; the idea of coping with an all-new weapon while doing it made it all the worse. The thought that she might live or die based on those skills was a cold knot of fear in her belly.

There was no getting away from it, either. Not while they passed two wrecked security androids along the way, saw more than one girl cowering in a corner, weeping, and even corpses as well. Daana, a tall human woman a little past her prime who'd acted as a kind of den mother for the younger girls, lay carved open in the middle of the hall. Tane had had to drag Jade past that one with a terse, "Don't look; you can't do her any good now." A bald-headed bouncer was sprawled halfway through a door.

"Any idea why they went after you?" Tane asked her. "We've seen a couple of girls left alive so far."

"I think," Jade said, "that he thought I was security. I'd locked myself in my room, and was holding one of the swords I use in my act. He was going to shoot me, and after that, we were fighting."

"You're the sword-dancer?" Tane asked, surprised. "The one who wears a mask?"

"Uh huh. The eye patch would spoil the effect, so I cover my whole face instead."

"You're really good; I saw your act right before the bad guys made their–hold it." He held up a hand. She heard it too, the distinctive hum of a Photon weapon coming from around the corner up ahead, the one that led to the rear exit.

"Is there another way out of here?"

"No; the back door's right there."

"Crap. They left someone to guard the door. We'll have to fight."

There was a wet, gurgling sound that made Jade's gorge rise. She wanted to turn and run away, but Tane was right. There really was no other choice. They burst around the corner just in time to see a tall, sapphire-finish android flick away the corpse of a bouncer by the neck. There was blood on its fingers to match the body's crushed throat. Two other bodies lay at its feet, these seemingly having been dispatched by more conventional means.

"Oh, hell," Tane cursed, his oath nearly lost in the boom of his gun. The shots ricocheted off the android's armor, two off its broad torso plate and one off its helmetlike head.

The android then moved fast, springing at its enemies. With a swipe of its powerful arm it crashed the violet-bladed Photon saber in its right hand at Tane, knocking him out of the way and into the wall. Jade struck at it, but it parried with its built-up left forearm and sparks flew. Then it was striking and she almost overcorrected with the weightless saber blade. The android hacked viciously at her; its strength was enormous and every time she was forced to block an attack directly instead of being able to guide it away a jolt of pain shot up her wrists and arms.

There was no way she was going to beat this enemy. It was a highly trained killing machine, far more skilled than the Ranger she'd beaten in her room, and that wasn't even factoring in the powerful armor built onto its body. Malice seemed to burn in its pale white "eyes."

Two more sweeps of its buster were more than Jade could handle; her saber was knocked free from her hand and bounced off a wall. She sprang away as it reached for her with its bloodstained, empty hand, apparently intending to finish her off as it had the bouncer, so it prepared to cut her down with its weapon, instead. Perhaps its programming only allowed it one attempt to kill in a "fun" way before it gave up and just finished the job.

Suddenly, a spasmodic twitch jerked the android's body, and it stood stiffly erect. There were two sharp cracks, followed by two more spasms, and then the android fell over forward to crash on its face on the carpet. Behind him, Tane lay on his back, gun extended in a two-handed firing grip. There was a nasty gash across his abdomen, his shirt ripped open and a bloody wound showing through.

"Sometimes I wish I was an android," he muttered. "They can walk around fully armored without raising any attention, but people like us, just going about our business, have to make do with ordinary clothes. That HUcast would have sliced me in two if I hadn't had Deband in effect. Thanks for tying it up, though. I'd have never gotten a shot at a vulnerable spot if it was concentrating on me.

"Um...you're welcome?"

Tane grinned.

"I know you weren't doing it on purpose, but thanks anyway. You did well; I know plenty of hunters who couldn't stand up to a combat android like that for as long as you lasted, especially without armor or a barrier or even a familiar weapon. For the first couple of seconds I was just twitching on the floor, stunned. You don't keep its attention, and I'm dead."

Jade flushed with pleasure as she realized that Tane was sincere. He made to sit up, then winced.

"I don't suppose you know Resta?"

Jade shook her head.

"I don't know any techniques, Tane."

"Okay." He held his left hand, palm down, over his injury, and his jaw clenched slightly in concentration. Showers of golden light sparkled momentarily in the air, and the wound healed over, leaving only a narrow line of new pink flesh. There must have been some kind of residual effect from the healing technique, because the soreness in Jade's wrists and arms vanished at once. Tane got to his feet, shaking his head.

"My brain wasn't wired for this," he said with a sigh. "Too many techs always give me a headache. Let's get out of here."

Gun at the ready, he tabbed open the door, which slid back to reveal the empty street outside. No one was waiting, no further hunters or thugs tried to stop their escape, and relief washed over Jade like a sluice of icy water.

Suddenly, from behind them came the thunderous boom of an explosion. The sound was muffled, probably from being several rooms away through the block, but it was still dramatic, clearly something big at a distance rather than something small close by.

"What was that?" Jade yelped.

"Bad news for somebody," Tane told her flatly. "Thankfully, not us. This job is shot to hell, so I'm just glad to be out of the free-fire zone and heading somewhere safe and quiet."

It was then it occurred to Jade, the kind of thing that the immediacy of combat had pushed aside.

She didn't have somewhere safe and quiet to go.

She didn't have anywhere to go.