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Blake's 7, Dayna/Tarrant, dangerous games.
Fandom: Blake's 7
Characters: Dayna & Tarrant
Gen, c. 3800 words
Game For Anything
"Ow! Damn it!" Thrown violently against the door as the buggy took a sharp corner, Tarrant righted himself with difficulty. "Who taught you to drive, anyway?"
"Shut up and keep your head down!" They took another corner, almost as wild, flinging Tarrant back the other way, and almost on top of Dayna. "And be careful. It's hard enough to drive this museum piece without you on top of me."
"Sorry." He disentangled himself from his chauffeur as best he could; none too easy to accomplish with his hands bound behind his back. "But you're not exactly helping, you know."
Dayna shot him a sour look, earning herself a winning smile in reply. "Neither are your friends! Do you want to drive?"
"Love to. But if we stop to get these ropes off, we'll be dead before you can draw your weapon."
"I doubt that." She was very serious. So was he, but that didn't prevent another smile.
"Dayna, you are the fastest and most lethal being in the galaxy. I'm not disputing that." They were jolted violently by an unexpected dip in the terrain, and for a moment Tarrant's dazzling smile vanished. "I might even love you if you weren't so terrifying. But there are nine of them, and they have laser cannons. We cannot stop and fight."
"I know." She spun the wheel again, sending the vehicle juddering and rattling onto two wheels, before it righted itself with an ominous crunch. "But I prefer to fight. Running away doesn't agree with me."
"Nor me." Tarrant glanced back over his shoulder. Even with Dayna's borderline suicidal driving, the enemy were gaining on them. One good shot would be all that they needed. The little buggy would be left as little more than space dust. "If it's all the same to you though, I rate my survival just a little higher than my pride."
"Huh." Locked in a struggle with steering wheel, accelerator and the combined pitfalls of gravity and rough terrain, Dayna remained focused on her driving, but she took the time to shoot a sideways glance Tarrant's way. It spoke volumes. He could not help but smile once again.
"You're going to be the death of me," he told her. "I've always thought it, but I didn't expect it to be quite as soon as this morning."
"They're your friends," she growled, struggling to keep hold of the wheel. By now the terrain was so bad that the little buggy could barely stay upright. "And in about another sixty seconds we're dead anyway."
"Point taken." All four wheels lost contact with the ground, crashing back down again with enough force that Dayna lost hold of the wheel, and they slewed violently to the right. A second later a laser cannon blast took a huge chunk out of the rocks to their left, showering them with hot dust. With all the strength in her deceptively small frame, Dayna regained control, but smoke was billowing from the engine. It was not hard to see why. Hot fragments of rock from the cannon blast had lodged themselves in the ventilator, and the engine was close to overheating.
"Abandon ship?" she asked, as another blast rocked them from side to side. Tarrant glanced behind them. He could not see the enemy for the clouds of dust and smoke in the air, but he could hear them. The fierce growl of their engines, alien to his space-educated ears, gave away their position – and it was not encouraging. All the same, if they bailed out now, they would be sitting ducks – always supposing they survived the jump. Alongside, Dayna flashed him a smile that might have meant anything. Maybe it was not even a smile. Given her battle with engine, wheel and laws of motion, it might just as easily have been a grimace. Ever the optimist, he chose to assume it was the former.
"Good luck," he told her, although he had an idea that she didn't believe in such things. A second later she was gone, leaping from the vehicle with her usual nimble grace, and vanishing into the smoke. Hands bound, Tarrant had no hope of copying the manoeuvre, but with blind hope and grim determination, he jumped. The buggy rattled and roared its way on, teetering on two wheels yet again as the terrain steepened ahead. As he crashed to the ground, the rocks and hard, stabbing roots giving him an unpleasant welcome, the buggy vanished altogether, toppling away down a steep incline, in a clatter of dismembered parts.
"Dayna!" He didn't dare yell out for her, but hissed instead, half sliding and half wriggling with awkward, stealthy speed towards some rocks. He had no wish to be flattened by the wheels of their pursuers. He saw her a second later, slithering towards him for all the world as though she had been doing this all her life. There was a blaster in one hand and a knife in the other, its twin blades serrated, and looking distinctly hungry.
"There!" came a shout from above them. Dayna reacted immediately, the knife shifting to her mouth so fast that Tarrant barely saw it move, her compact frame rolling over as she took a twin-handed grip on the blaster, and fired twice towards the voice. A choked-off cry told them that she had not missed her target, but she had also confirmed the look out's last alert. With an effort, Tarrant struggled to his feet.
"Come on," he urged, somewhat unnecessarily, and together they ran, more or less blindly in the settling dust. The ground was barely easier on foot than it had been in the buggy, a mass of dips and rises, loose rock and looser dust. The tangle of roots were a ferocious adversary on their own, snagging on foot, ankle and trouser leg, stabbing wherever they could. It was like running through a sea of hands, armed with wicked little knives.
"This way." Dayna had spotted some cover, and they slithered into it, undergrowth tearing their clothes and their skin. Engines roared nearby, and the acrid scent of hot fumes blew through the tangled undergrowth in choking gusts. The pair lay still, neither one making a sound, until finally the engines faded. They were gone – for now.
"Ow," said Tarrant, once he was quite sure that he would not be overheard. "I've had better landings."
"So have I." Scrambling towards him through thorns and thistles, Dayna hacked her way through his ropes, then flopped down beside him. "And I've had better hideouts. And better chases. And better days."
"Should I apologise?" he asked. She shot him a withering glare – then, after a moment, a smile.
"I just wish you'd be more careful who you play with. Whose idea was this anyway?"
"Avon's." Tarrant's voice spoke of pleasant thoughts of revenge, that they both knew would never see fruition. "'It'll be easy, Tarrant. All you have to do is talk to them. They're sure to see things our way.' If that was seeing things our way, I should hate to be party to a disagreement."
"Yes, well there's no point in taking it up with Avon." Dayna checked the load in her gun, scowling at the depleted power level. "Always supposing we ever get back to the Liberator."
"How do things look?" asked Tarrant. She shrugged.
"I've faced enemies with less. But next time I come to see how you're getting on, I'll bring extra weapons. I should know better by now."
"Oh, because you never get into trouble at all?"
"Not in the same way. I have the sense to shoot first and ask questions later. You're the one who insists on relying on charm, and then gets himself trapped in a corner. We wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't tried to make conversation."
"If you'd taken that attitude when we first met, we would have robbed the galaxy of a beautiful friendship."
She shot him a sardonic look. "And saved myself a lot of trouble."
"You'd be dead. Who'd watch your back?"
"Vila." She smiled. After a moment, so did he. "This is stupid, you do realise that? We can't sit here until the Liberator comes back into teleport range. They're bound to find us before then anyway."
"I did see some scanners with their equipment." He sighed. "Trapped like rats, or running the gauntlet of that lot. We do find ourselves faced with some delightful choices, don't we."
"Look on it as a game," she suggested. True to form, there was a playful look in her eyes. It was his turn for a sour glare.
"Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a game with a more even playing field. I don't have any weapons."
"But you have a disarming smile." She battled her eyelashes at him, her sarcasm as sharp as her knife, and that very smile brought itself back out for an encore.
"Maybe I'll take your gun."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Probably true." He sighed. "Oh well. If we're going to dive headlong into certain destruction, I suppose we might as well get it over with."
"Here." She had pulled something from some non-existent fold in the cloth of her black-and-silver jumpsuit, and she handed it across to him – two somethings; flat discs with tapering edges, and with surprising weight for their small size.
"Do I take it that these are a Dayna special?" he asked. She gave a little shrug.
"They're not my best, but throw them and they'll explode reasonably loudly. It's better than going out there unarmed."
"I'm touched."
"You're more use to me alive than dead. Just don't throw them anywhere near me."
"Or trip and drop them?"
"Don't land on them, certainly." She slipped past him, to where their meagre cover ended, and the wide open world began. "Ready for some fun?"
"Let the games begin." His smile was brief, but warm and eloquent. Her own, equally brief, matched it almost exactly. It was the only conversation they needed as they rolled free of the undergrowth, and made their bid for freedom. To face the enemy head on was exactly what they had hoped to avoid, but there was no time to think about that now. There was barely enough time to think about each other.
They separated, operating on an instinct they had always seemed to share. A rattling roar of ancient engines made the ground vibrate beneath their feet, and they let the enemy come between them – two buggies, identical to their own, but piloted with rather more experience and skill. The lead vehicle held three men, all leather and decorative armour, black and glossy steel to match the livery of their car. The second vehicle held five men, also dressed the same, but in face-concealing helmets daubed with an explosion of coloured paint. Eight men, nine guns. The ninth, taken no doubt from the man that Dayna had killed, was wielded by the largest of the men, one huge gun in each hand. Tarrant doubted that his aim would be up to much, but the firepower was such that it probably wouldn't matter.
"There!" somebody shouted. It was hardly important who. The guns pointed each way, even the drivers getting in on the act, at least one of them steering with his knees from what Tarrant could see. It was the last thing that he did see, for quite some while. A massive laser blast vaporised the earth just yards from his left foot, and knocked sideways by the concussion, he rolled almost straight into the path of a second blast, that effectively deafened as well as blinded him. Fighting the urge to rub his eyes, with hands that were thick with dust, he struggled to his hands and knees and back to his feet. He could hear Dayna's gun, thin and reedy in comparison with the laser cannons, but steady and determined. He had expected nothing less. Using the sound to orient himself, he pulled out one of her little discs, weighed it briefly in one hand, then hurled it with all his might. A third cannon blast near buried him in dust, but even so, he heard his missile strike home. He might almost have heard it from out in orbit.
The blast was astonishing. He kept his feet, although the explosion staggered him, rocking the ground and echoing back from the many slopes that surrounded them. There was still too much dust in his eyes to be sure of the effect, but nobody fired back. That at least was a good sign. Blinking furiously, face wet with what must surely be blood as well as tears, he managed at last to make sense of the dusty shapes and shadows. The lead vehicle was still upright, but the second had capsized. At least three of the men inside did not seem to be moving.
"Dayna!" He shouted because he had to know, no matter the risk. She didn't reply, but her gunfire began again, telling him that she was alright. The bright light of her laser fire illuminated the ruined buggy, and he saw a man fall. Momentarily helpless in the carnage, the survivors of the crash were an easy target for her. He knew that he would have no cause to worry about those five again. The three in the lead vehicle were a different matter.
He saw it turning towards him whilst he was still trying to blink some clarity back into his vision – the bores of three laser cannons all coming to bear upon him at the same time. His hand went straight for the second of Dayna's madly explosive discs, but there was not nearly enough time to pull it clear of his pocket. He could do nothing but throw himself aside, as the buggy's engines roared, and the vehicle came careering towards him, rocks and dirt spraying left and right beneath its wheels. He hit the ground hard, for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, almost immune now to the myriad shocks of sharp stones, sharp roots, and tough, unyielding earth. He did not have the luxury of considering the pain. A laser blast melted the ground so near him that he felt the molten earth splash across his boots, causing them to smoulder and smoke, the scent a peculiar note amidst the more familiar smell of yet another explosion. The engines roared again, too close now for him to throw the disc. Too close for him to do anything but duck and weave and run, hoping to confound his enemies' aim. Too close for him to stand any chance of getting away.
The weight that struck him across the shoulders was wholly expected, bearing him to the ground beneath it, pressing him hard into unforgiving rock. The man was not much bigger than he was, but he was a good deal less tired, and he had the force of their impact in his favour. Tarrant struggled and fought, but the insistent weight pressed down upon him, and he found himself pinioned, helpless beneath a greater strength. A moment later he was hauled to his feet and spun around, thrown hard against the hot metal of the buggy. His vision was still horribly blurred, but he could see the laser cannon that loomed mere inches from his face, and offered it a slightly winded variant of his usual smile.
"Hello again?" His voice sounded harsh, scratched almost raw by the perpetual dust and smoke. Something – another laser cannon no doubt – jabbed him hard enough in the side to make him double over.
"Tell your friend to surrender," hissed a voice, one that he thought he recognised as belonging to the gang's self-appointed leader. A Federation deserter like Tarrant himself, but with a taste for blood and carnage that suggested his own desertion had been because the Federation was not vicious enough. Tarrant's eyes roamed past the looming shapes of his blurred and dusty captors, towards Dayna's distant, unseen refuge. He wondered what she was doing. Probably calculating whether the chance of hitting an enemy was worth the risk of hitting him at the same time.
"You don't know my friend very well," he said, wishing for a chance to draw breath properly, a chance to recover his poise; even just a chance to cough out the dust, and rinse the gritty rawness from his throat. It offended his sense of theatre to be reduced to such a rough rasp. The cannon jabbed into his side again, and a hand that seemed unfairly large grabbed at his collar, knocking his head against the side of the buggy in its haste.
"Tell him," hissed the voice again. Despite himself, Tarrant had to fight a sudden urge to laugh. There was a time when he might easily have made the same mistake, Federation training being what it was. A time when he would never have imagined that his partner, his frequent saviour, and his companion in every kind of mayhem, would be a woman – and little more than a girl at that, even younger than himself. He made no effort to explain the error. They would hardly have cared anyway. Moments later he felt himself hauled away from the buggy, one arm twisted up behind his back, the ridiculously large muzzle of a laser cannon jammed against the side of his head. If the man behind it pulled the trigger now, he would not just obliterate Tarrant's head, but his entire body as well – and more than likely the man holding him into the bargain.
"Tell him yourself." Dayna's voice, little more than a soft, deadly whisper, came from just a stone's throw away, on the other side of the buggy. Tarrant could see her in his mind's eye, crouched, poised, the gun pointed with steady, lethal aim at the head of the leader of the gang. At such a distance she could not miss. He wondered, idly, if it mattered to her that he was sure to be collateral damage. The leader could very easily pull his own trigger before he died. On balance, he decided, it probably didn't.
"Drop your gun!" somebody shouted. The leader, Tarrant thought, not that it made any difference. Trusting in Dayna, trusting his own instincts, he threw all of his weight at the man holding him, and sent them both tumbling to one side. Reflexively, the leader fired his laser cannon, a searing hot blast of energy exploding over the top of Tarrant's head, ruffling his curls with a wind like a superheated hurricane. At the same moment, Dayna fired. Something spattered across Tarrant, and he had a nasty suspicion that it was the leader's head, blown to smithereens. Just now there was not the time to think about it. Ramming an elbow into the ribs of the man still just barely holding him, he rolled to his feet, lashing out with a booted foot in a manoeuvre definitely not taught at the Federation Academy, then wrenched the man's laser cannon from his grip. Nearby, a further volley of gunfire from Dayna had disposed of the third member of the gang. They were left with just the one.
"Give it up," Tarrant told him, feeling slightly absurd holding a prisoner at bay with such a massive weapon. Firing it towards the ground, at this close range, might easily knock him ten feet straight up in the air. The man raised his arms, glowering ferociously right up until the moment that Dayna shot him. She tossed her now empty gun onto his still smouldering body, before skewering Tarrant with a glare almost as deadly as the blast.
"What were we going to do with him? Keep him around for decoration? Shoot first. Ask questions later."
"You're a one woman demolition squad, you know that?"
"Yes, I do." She wiped the grime from her hands as best she could, dusting the worst of it from her clothes. "We're alive. That's all that matters."
"I suppose so." Somehow he could never quite follow that line of thinking. There was a part of him that always wanted to be gallant, be honourable, give the enemy a chance no matter what. It was probably the same part of him that kept getting him into these sticky situations. He smiled. "Just as well you're here, isn't it."
"Isn't that what I keep trying to tell you people?"
"You can't expect gratitude, Dayna. We're pirates."
"Is that what we are? Somehow I'm never sure." They fell into step together, heading away from the three bodies; from the smouldering wreckage of the other buggy, with its ruined collection of blown apart corpses; from the smell of hot earth, burnt metal and blood. "That bomb was good though, wasn't it."
"It was." He pulled out the remaining disc, tossing it into the air, so that its tapering edges gleamed in the still rising sun. "Here. You'd better have it back."
"Keep it." She shrugged. "You never know, it might come in handy."
"Maybe one day I'll use it to save you."
"Maybe." She eyed him askance. "Although if you're saving me, who will there be to save you?"
"We can take it turns. And in case I didn't say it earlier, thank you. You didn't have to come looking for me. I do appreciate that."
"That's all right. I didn't have anything better to do." She smiled up at him. "Come on, let's find somewhere more comfortable to wait for the Liberator. I don't suppose they had any decent food back at their ship?"
"I didn't really get the chance to look. It's possible though."
"Good. Adventure always gives me an appetite."
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one with somebody's brains splattered all over your trousers."
"Yes." She frowned at the grim stains. "You can sit downwind of me when we eat."
"You're so kind."
"I know." Her smile was bright, and remarkably youthful. In reply to it, so was his own. They might almost have been blind to the fate they had so narrowly avoided, but in truth they were not. It was merely that their lives were what they were, and they had accepted that. The time to worry would come later, when they were older, and slower, and less able to rely on their assorted instincts and skills. For now they had their youth, their speed and their strength – and they had each other. It did little to lessen the danger, but it had seen them through another battle. The universe had not beaten them yet. For now at least, that was reason enough to smile.
The End
Blake's 7, Dayna/Tarrant, dangerous games.
Fandom: Blake's 7
Characters: Dayna & Tarrant
Gen, c. 3800 words
"Ow! Damn it!" Thrown violently against the door as the buggy took a sharp corner, Tarrant righted himself with difficulty. "Who taught you to drive, anyway?"
"Shut up and keep your head down!" They took another corner, almost as wild, flinging Tarrant back the other way, and almost on top of Dayna. "And be careful. It's hard enough to drive this museum piece without you on top of me."
"Sorry." He disentangled himself from his chauffeur as best he could; none too easy to accomplish with his hands bound behind his back. "But you're not exactly helping, you know."
Dayna shot him a sour look, earning herself a winning smile in reply. "Neither are your friends! Do you want to drive?"
"Love to. But if we stop to get these ropes off, we'll be dead before you can draw your weapon."
"I doubt that." She was very serious. So was he, but that didn't prevent another smile.
"Dayna, you are the fastest and most lethal being in the galaxy. I'm not disputing that." They were jolted violently by an unexpected dip in the terrain, and for a moment Tarrant's dazzling smile vanished. "I might even love you if you weren't so terrifying. But there are nine of them, and they have laser cannons. We cannot stop and fight."
"I know." She spun the wheel again, sending the vehicle juddering and rattling onto two wheels, before it righted itself with an ominous crunch. "But I prefer to fight. Running away doesn't agree with me."
"Nor me." Tarrant glanced back over his shoulder. Even with Dayna's borderline suicidal driving, the enemy were gaining on them. One good shot would be all that they needed. The little buggy would be left as little more than space dust. "If it's all the same to you though, I rate my survival just a little higher than my pride."
"Huh." Locked in a struggle with steering wheel, accelerator and the combined pitfalls of gravity and rough terrain, Dayna remained focused on her driving, but she took the time to shoot a sideways glance Tarrant's way. It spoke volumes. He could not help but smile once again.
"You're going to be the death of me," he told her. "I've always thought it, but I didn't expect it to be quite as soon as this morning."
"They're your friends," she growled, struggling to keep hold of the wheel. By now the terrain was so bad that the little buggy could barely stay upright. "And in about another sixty seconds we're dead anyway."
"Point taken." All four wheels lost contact with the ground, crashing back down again with enough force that Dayna lost hold of the wheel, and they slewed violently to the right. A second later a laser cannon blast took a huge chunk out of the rocks to their left, showering them with hot dust. With all the strength in her deceptively small frame, Dayna regained control, but smoke was billowing from the engine. It was not hard to see why. Hot fragments of rock from the cannon blast had lodged themselves in the ventilator, and the engine was close to overheating.
"Abandon ship?" she asked, as another blast rocked them from side to side. Tarrant glanced behind them. He could not see the enemy for the clouds of dust and smoke in the air, but he could hear them. The fierce growl of their engines, alien to his space-educated ears, gave away their position – and it was not encouraging. All the same, if they bailed out now, they would be sitting ducks – always supposing they survived the jump. Alongside, Dayna flashed him a smile that might have meant anything. Maybe it was not even a smile. Given her battle with engine, wheel and laws of motion, it might just as easily have been a grimace. Ever the optimist, he chose to assume it was the former.
"Good luck," he told her, although he had an idea that she didn't believe in such things. A second later she was gone, leaping from the vehicle with her usual nimble grace, and vanishing into the smoke. Hands bound, Tarrant had no hope of copying the manoeuvre, but with blind hope and grim determination, he jumped. The buggy rattled and roared its way on, teetering on two wheels yet again as the terrain steepened ahead. As he crashed to the ground, the rocks and hard, stabbing roots giving him an unpleasant welcome, the buggy vanished altogether, toppling away down a steep incline, in a clatter of dismembered parts.
"Dayna!" He didn't dare yell out for her, but hissed instead, half sliding and half wriggling with awkward, stealthy speed towards some rocks. He had no wish to be flattened by the wheels of their pursuers. He saw her a second later, slithering towards him for all the world as though she had been doing this all her life. There was a blaster in one hand and a knife in the other, its twin blades serrated, and looking distinctly hungry.
"There!" came a shout from above them. Dayna reacted immediately, the knife shifting to her mouth so fast that Tarrant barely saw it move, her compact frame rolling over as she took a twin-handed grip on the blaster, and fired twice towards the voice. A choked-off cry told them that she had not missed her target, but she had also confirmed the look out's last alert. With an effort, Tarrant struggled to his feet.
"Come on," he urged, somewhat unnecessarily, and together they ran, more or less blindly in the settling dust. The ground was barely easier on foot than it had been in the buggy, a mass of dips and rises, loose rock and looser dust. The tangle of roots were a ferocious adversary on their own, snagging on foot, ankle and trouser leg, stabbing wherever they could. It was like running through a sea of hands, armed with wicked little knives.
"This way." Dayna had spotted some cover, and they slithered into it, undergrowth tearing their clothes and their skin. Engines roared nearby, and the acrid scent of hot fumes blew through the tangled undergrowth in choking gusts. The pair lay still, neither one making a sound, until finally the engines faded. They were gone – for now.
"Ow," said Tarrant, once he was quite sure that he would not be overheard. "I've had better landings."
"So have I." Scrambling towards him through thorns and thistles, Dayna hacked her way through his ropes, then flopped down beside him. "And I've had better hideouts. And better chases. And better days."
"Should I apologise?" he asked. She shot him a withering glare – then, after a moment, a smile.
"I just wish you'd be more careful who you play with. Whose idea was this anyway?"
"Avon's." Tarrant's voice spoke of pleasant thoughts of revenge, that they both knew would never see fruition. "'It'll be easy, Tarrant. All you have to do is talk to them. They're sure to see things our way.' If that was seeing things our way, I should hate to be party to a disagreement."
"Yes, well there's no point in taking it up with Avon." Dayna checked the load in her gun, scowling at the depleted power level. "Always supposing we ever get back to the Liberator."
"How do things look?" asked Tarrant. She shrugged.
"I've faced enemies with less. But next time I come to see how you're getting on, I'll bring extra weapons. I should know better by now."
"Oh, because you never get into trouble at all?"
"Not in the same way. I have the sense to shoot first and ask questions later. You're the one who insists on relying on charm, and then gets himself trapped in a corner. We wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't tried to make conversation."
"If you'd taken that attitude when we first met, we would have robbed the galaxy of a beautiful friendship."
She shot him a sardonic look. "And saved myself a lot of trouble."
"You'd be dead. Who'd watch your back?"
"Vila." She smiled. After a moment, so did he. "This is stupid, you do realise that? We can't sit here until the Liberator comes back into teleport range. They're bound to find us before then anyway."
"I did see some scanners with their equipment." He sighed. "Trapped like rats, or running the gauntlet of that lot. We do find ourselves faced with some delightful choices, don't we."
"Look on it as a game," she suggested. True to form, there was a playful look in her eyes. It was his turn for a sour glare.
"Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a game with a more even playing field. I don't have any weapons."
"But you have a disarming smile." She battled her eyelashes at him, her sarcasm as sharp as her knife, and that very smile brought itself back out for an encore.
"Maybe I'll take your gun."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Probably true." He sighed. "Oh well. If we're going to dive headlong into certain destruction, I suppose we might as well get it over with."
"Here." She had pulled something from some non-existent fold in the cloth of her black-and-silver jumpsuit, and she handed it across to him – two somethings; flat discs with tapering edges, and with surprising weight for their small size.
"Do I take it that these are a Dayna special?" he asked. She gave a little shrug.
"They're not my best, but throw them and they'll explode reasonably loudly. It's better than going out there unarmed."
"I'm touched."
"You're more use to me alive than dead. Just don't throw them anywhere near me."
"Or trip and drop them?"
"Don't land on them, certainly." She slipped past him, to where their meagre cover ended, and the wide open world began. "Ready for some fun?"
"Let the games begin." His smile was brief, but warm and eloquent. Her own, equally brief, matched it almost exactly. It was the only conversation they needed as they rolled free of the undergrowth, and made their bid for freedom. To face the enemy head on was exactly what they had hoped to avoid, but there was no time to think about that now. There was barely enough time to think about each other.
They separated, operating on an instinct they had always seemed to share. A rattling roar of ancient engines made the ground vibrate beneath their feet, and they let the enemy come between them – two buggies, identical to their own, but piloted with rather more experience and skill. The lead vehicle held three men, all leather and decorative armour, black and glossy steel to match the livery of their car. The second vehicle held five men, also dressed the same, but in face-concealing helmets daubed with an explosion of coloured paint. Eight men, nine guns. The ninth, taken no doubt from the man that Dayna had killed, was wielded by the largest of the men, one huge gun in each hand. Tarrant doubted that his aim would be up to much, but the firepower was such that it probably wouldn't matter.
"There!" somebody shouted. It was hardly important who. The guns pointed each way, even the drivers getting in on the act, at least one of them steering with his knees from what Tarrant could see. It was the last thing that he did see, for quite some while. A massive laser blast vaporised the earth just yards from his left foot, and knocked sideways by the concussion, he rolled almost straight into the path of a second blast, that effectively deafened as well as blinded him. Fighting the urge to rub his eyes, with hands that were thick with dust, he struggled to his hands and knees and back to his feet. He could hear Dayna's gun, thin and reedy in comparison with the laser cannons, but steady and determined. He had expected nothing less. Using the sound to orient himself, he pulled out one of her little discs, weighed it briefly in one hand, then hurled it with all his might. A third cannon blast near buried him in dust, but even so, he heard his missile strike home. He might almost have heard it from out in orbit.
The blast was astonishing. He kept his feet, although the explosion staggered him, rocking the ground and echoing back from the many slopes that surrounded them. There was still too much dust in his eyes to be sure of the effect, but nobody fired back. That at least was a good sign. Blinking furiously, face wet with what must surely be blood as well as tears, he managed at last to make sense of the dusty shapes and shadows. The lead vehicle was still upright, but the second had capsized. At least three of the men inside did not seem to be moving.
"Dayna!" He shouted because he had to know, no matter the risk. She didn't reply, but her gunfire began again, telling him that she was alright. The bright light of her laser fire illuminated the ruined buggy, and he saw a man fall. Momentarily helpless in the carnage, the survivors of the crash were an easy target for her. He knew that he would have no cause to worry about those five again. The three in the lead vehicle were a different matter.
He saw it turning towards him whilst he was still trying to blink some clarity back into his vision – the bores of three laser cannons all coming to bear upon him at the same time. His hand went straight for the second of Dayna's madly explosive discs, but there was not nearly enough time to pull it clear of his pocket. He could do nothing but throw himself aside, as the buggy's engines roared, and the vehicle came careering towards him, rocks and dirt spraying left and right beneath its wheels. He hit the ground hard, for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, almost immune now to the myriad shocks of sharp stones, sharp roots, and tough, unyielding earth. He did not have the luxury of considering the pain. A laser blast melted the ground so near him that he felt the molten earth splash across his boots, causing them to smoulder and smoke, the scent a peculiar note amidst the more familiar smell of yet another explosion. The engines roared again, too close now for him to throw the disc. Too close for him to do anything but duck and weave and run, hoping to confound his enemies' aim. Too close for him to stand any chance of getting away.
The weight that struck him across the shoulders was wholly expected, bearing him to the ground beneath it, pressing him hard into unforgiving rock. The man was not much bigger than he was, but he was a good deal less tired, and he had the force of their impact in his favour. Tarrant struggled and fought, but the insistent weight pressed down upon him, and he found himself pinioned, helpless beneath a greater strength. A moment later he was hauled to his feet and spun around, thrown hard against the hot metal of the buggy. His vision was still horribly blurred, but he could see the laser cannon that loomed mere inches from his face, and offered it a slightly winded variant of his usual smile.
"Hello again?" His voice sounded harsh, scratched almost raw by the perpetual dust and smoke. Something – another laser cannon no doubt – jabbed him hard enough in the side to make him double over.
"Tell your friend to surrender," hissed a voice, one that he thought he recognised as belonging to the gang's self-appointed leader. A Federation deserter like Tarrant himself, but with a taste for blood and carnage that suggested his own desertion had been because the Federation was not vicious enough. Tarrant's eyes roamed past the looming shapes of his blurred and dusty captors, towards Dayna's distant, unseen refuge. He wondered what she was doing. Probably calculating whether the chance of hitting an enemy was worth the risk of hitting him at the same time.
"You don't know my friend very well," he said, wishing for a chance to draw breath properly, a chance to recover his poise; even just a chance to cough out the dust, and rinse the gritty rawness from his throat. It offended his sense of theatre to be reduced to such a rough rasp. The cannon jabbed into his side again, and a hand that seemed unfairly large grabbed at his collar, knocking his head against the side of the buggy in its haste.
"Tell him," hissed the voice again. Despite himself, Tarrant had to fight a sudden urge to laugh. There was a time when he might easily have made the same mistake, Federation training being what it was. A time when he would never have imagined that his partner, his frequent saviour, and his companion in every kind of mayhem, would be a woman – and little more than a girl at that, even younger than himself. He made no effort to explain the error. They would hardly have cared anyway. Moments later he felt himself hauled away from the buggy, one arm twisted up behind his back, the ridiculously large muzzle of a laser cannon jammed against the side of his head. If the man behind it pulled the trigger now, he would not just obliterate Tarrant's head, but his entire body as well – and more than likely the man holding him into the bargain.
"Tell him yourself." Dayna's voice, little more than a soft, deadly whisper, came from just a stone's throw away, on the other side of the buggy. Tarrant could see her in his mind's eye, crouched, poised, the gun pointed with steady, lethal aim at the head of the leader of the gang. At such a distance she could not miss. He wondered, idly, if it mattered to her that he was sure to be collateral damage. The leader could very easily pull his own trigger before he died. On balance, he decided, it probably didn't.
"Drop your gun!" somebody shouted. The leader, Tarrant thought, not that it made any difference. Trusting in Dayna, trusting his own instincts, he threw all of his weight at the man holding him, and sent them both tumbling to one side. Reflexively, the leader fired his laser cannon, a searing hot blast of energy exploding over the top of Tarrant's head, ruffling his curls with a wind like a superheated hurricane. At the same moment, Dayna fired. Something spattered across Tarrant, and he had a nasty suspicion that it was the leader's head, blown to smithereens. Just now there was not the time to think about it. Ramming an elbow into the ribs of the man still just barely holding him, he rolled to his feet, lashing out with a booted foot in a manoeuvre definitely not taught at the Federation Academy, then wrenched the man's laser cannon from his grip. Nearby, a further volley of gunfire from Dayna had disposed of the third member of the gang. They were left with just the one.
"Give it up," Tarrant told him, feeling slightly absurd holding a prisoner at bay with such a massive weapon. Firing it towards the ground, at this close range, might easily knock him ten feet straight up in the air. The man raised his arms, glowering ferociously right up until the moment that Dayna shot him. She tossed her now empty gun onto his still smouldering body, before skewering Tarrant with a glare almost as deadly as the blast.
"What were we going to do with him? Keep him around for decoration? Shoot first. Ask questions later."
"You're a one woman demolition squad, you know that?"
"Yes, I do." She wiped the grime from her hands as best she could, dusting the worst of it from her clothes. "We're alive. That's all that matters."
"I suppose so." Somehow he could never quite follow that line of thinking. There was a part of him that always wanted to be gallant, be honourable, give the enemy a chance no matter what. It was probably the same part of him that kept getting him into these sticky situations. He smiled. "Just as well you're here, isn't it."
"Isn't that what I keep trying to tell you people?"
"You can't expect gratitude, Dayna. We're pirates."
"Is that what we are? Somehow I'm never sure." They fell into step together, heading away from the three bodies; from the smouldering wreckage of the other buggy, with its ruined collection of blown apart corpses; from the smell of hot earth, burnt metal and blood. "That bomb was good though, wasn't it."
"It was." He pulled out the remaining disc, tossing it into the air, so that its tapering edges gleamed in the still rising sun. "Here. You'd better have it back."
"Keep it." She shrugged. "You never know, it might come in handy."
"Maybe one day I'll use it to save you."
"Maybe." She eyed him askance. "Although if you're saving me, who will there be to save you?"
"We can take it turns. And in case I didn't say it earlier, thank you. You didn't have to come looking for me. I do appreciate that."
"That's all right. I didn't have anything better to do." She smiled up at him. "Come on, let's find somewhere more comfortable to wait for the Liberator. I don't suppose they had any decent food back at their ship?"
"I didn't really get the chance to look. It's possible though."
"Good. Adventure always gives me an appetite."
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one with somebody's brains splattered all over your trousers."
"Yes." She frowned at the grim stains. "You can sit downwind of me when we eat."
"You're so kind."
"I know." Her smile was bright, and remarkably youthful. In reply to it, so was his own. They might almost have been blind to the fate they had so narrowly avoided, but in truth they were not. It was merely that their lives were what they were, and they had accepted that. The time to worry would come later, when they were older, and slower, and less able to rely on their assorted instincts and skills. For now they had their youth, their speed and their strength – and they had each other. It did little to lessen the danger, but it had seen them through another battle. The universe had not beaten them yet. For now at least, that was reason enough to smile.
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Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.