Star Force: Starchaser (SF69) (10 page)

“Trust me,” she said as they got to the edge and Mina
pulled up, then the Archon pushed her off the roof into freefall.

Mina screamed, but that invisible force pinched her
around the midsection and slowed her fall into a gentle drop that her feet
could have handled if she’d been paying attention. Instead she got dumped to
the ground with a not so soft bump on her head, but at least she hit dirt
rather than pavement.

Above her the Archon jumped, landing beside her in a
crouch that rolled out into a somersault…then the woman was on her feet and
pulling Mina to hers as they got back into a run again, this time heading off
through the forested section of the island. When they came across a trail they
sped up, with Mina running as fast as she could without tripping and the Archon
finally letting go of her arm but staying right on her shoulder the entire
time.

10

“Stop here,” the Archon said as they came to a curve
in the trail and stepped off under some curling branches and mostly out of
sight.

Mina coasted to stop alongside her, breathing hard and
barely able to speak. “Who is…after me?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” the Archon
said, casually standing next to the tree trunk and looking around. “Name’s
Ginsi.”

“Mina.”

“Yes I know,” the Archon said with a smile.

“What now?”

“I have a few friends nearby. They’ll clean up the
garbage while I keep you out of their hands.”

“How did you know I was here? And how did you know
they were coming for me?”

“I’ve been watching you since a few days after you
arrived on Optimus, and I expected they’d try again. Hijacking a ship is a big
deal, and if they went to that much trouble to get you an infiltration job here
would be a lot easier.”

“I used a fake name,” Mina said in mild protest.

“But paid with your own account.”

Mina squeezed her eyes shut, mentally kicking herself.
In retrospect that was really stupid.

“Relax. You’re not used to doing this sort of stuff,
and the name change was a good idea.”

“And you are?”

“I’m an Archon. I do lots of stuff.”

“Why did I rate an Archon…or anybody watching me?”

“We like to catch the bad guys before they can do bad
things again…and I volunteered for the assignment.”

“Volunteered?”

“I like your music and wanted to meet you. Plus I
didn’t want some
Regular
screwing up the assignment
and letting them get to you.”

“Regular?”

“Someone who’s not an Archon or a Knight,” Ginsi said
as a chirp sounded from her pocket. She pulled out an earpiece and slid it in
on the right side of her head and listened to the message. “We’ve located their
ship and I need to get to it before they can run.”

“Go ahead. I’ll hide here.”

“Like hell you will. You’re coming with,” Ginsi said,
pulling her by the arm but Mina dug her heels in and wouldn’t budge. “I won’t
let anything happen to you, I promise. Besides, I figured you’d want a little
payback.”

“How?”

The Archon smiled. “Let’s see what we can manage,
shall we?”

Mina hesitated, then gave in to the firm grip on her
arm and the two of them started running through the trees again, this time off
trail as they moved across about 300 meters of forest. There they came up on
another trail but they avoided it, turning and following it a few dozen meters
inside the trees as they headed towards the location Ginsi had been given. The
trail led to a section of the island that was urbanized and had two large
landing pads that were segmented into grids. Most were empty, but a handful of
spots were filled with various dropships and aerial craft.

One of those spots had been filled recently, but was
now missing its ship. A check of the navigational grid indicated it had not
left the island vertically or horizontally, but where it had gone was much closer
to the training facility and had put down in a clearing that was only a short
jog away…ostensibly to stuff Mina in without having to carry an unconscious
body with them any further than necessary. This was meant to be another smash
and grab operation, and the longer they had between the grab and their escape
the harder it would be for them to evade pursuit.

If they’d done it right
Mina
would have been gone without anyone missing her and the out of place ship being
little more than a curiosity to the few sets of eyes that had seen it. The
reason why Ginsi hadn’t revealed herself to Mina earlier had been because she
wanted to bait the attackers in so they could capture them in order to find the
source of these hits. The first group, or those that had survived the run-in
with the commandos, had left some clues but didn’t know who had hired them.
Ginsi intended to find a trail here and run it all the way back to the source,
which was the only way that Mina would be safe, for there was no way she was
going to personally guard her indefinitely. Her training was taking a big hit
just being here, but this was a rare enough occurrence that she wasn’t kicking
herself over it. This needed to be done and it was better for an Archon to do
it than a security officer any day.

Ginsi could feel the mind of the ship’s pilot before
the yellow/gray dropship came into view through the trees, with her stopping
Mina behind a large one before they could be seen.

“Ok, there’s one guy onboard. Human. We go in, take
him down, then wait and see who the cleanup crew misses and comes back here.”

“How? You’re not armed.”

Ginsi raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think I need
to be?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

Ginsi smiled then turned her attention off through the
trees. “I like you. Not the scared little girl most people expected.”

“I’m plenty scared, trust me.”

“But you’re not letting it overcome you. That’s the
point. Now come on, follow me in and watch my back. I’ll take this guy down in
under 5 seconds. Time me if you like.”

“Are all Archons this…
”

“Impressive?”

“Not the word I was going for.”

“It just gives us something to do when we’re waiting
on the action. Come on, I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright,” Mina said as Ginsi crept forward and she
matched her footsteps as best she could. They wound their way through the trees
until they came out into what was an outdoor exercise platform. Oddly enough it
was in the middle of the forest with only trails connecting to it, which was
probably why it wasn’t being used much. The Archon grabbed her wrist again and
pulled her out of cover with the both of them running across to the side of the
ship and skirting around it until they came to the open boarding hatch.

Ginsi held up five fingers and gave Mina a wink, then
she grabbed the handle on the side of the doorway and swung herself inside.
Mina followed her hesitantly, then heard sounds of a scuffle before seeing a
body hit the floor in front of her just as she got in through the entry cupola
and turned the corner into the central shaft that ran the length of the small
ship.

“How long was that?” Ginsi asked.

“Under five,” Mina admitted a she stared at the man
lying unconscious on the ground with a trickle of blood flowing from his
forehead.

“Yeah, forgot to take the ring off,” Ginsi said,
pulled off a relationship ring and tucking it into a pants pocket.

“I didn’t think Archons had boyfriends.”

“We don’t. But wearing one of these in public avoids
people hitting on you, mostly, and my job here was to protect you, not pick up
dates.”

“Thanks, by the way.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Are you really a fan?”

“I’m not a
fangirl
over
anything, but I do like your music and your style. You obviously keep yourself
in decent shape, and a lot of other musicians don’t.”

“Living forever has its appeal.”

“Damn straight,” Ginsi said, dropping down onto her
heels and rolling the guy over so she could reach inside one of his pockets and
pull out a
datachip
.

“What’s that?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something. Have a seat, we’ll
stick it out here and see if we can trap anyone else.”

“You mean you trap. I’m just the helpless observer.”

“You came from a maturia, right?”

“An Axius one, yes.”

“Then you’re not helpless either.”

“I can’t do that,” Mina insisted, gesturing towards
their quarry that the Archon was now restraining using a small cord that she’d
pulled out of another pocket in the civilian training garb she was wearing.

“What did I do?”

“You knocked him out.”

“And you can’t knock someone out?”

“I can’t hit that hard.”

“I’m a lot older than you. I wouldn’t expect you to.
That doesn’t mean you’re helpless.”

“Feels like it,” Mina said, stepping back from the now
restrained man and leaning against the sidewall and lowering her voice as she
glanced out the hatch, not wanting to alert anyone to their trap if they did
come back to the ship. “I couldn’t do anything the first time they attacked,
and those weren’t even
Human
.”

“It wasn’t exactly a sparring match. They meant to hit
you when you were off guard. Don’t let that convince you you’re helpless. Even
I can be ambushed.”

“I can’t protect myself against this.”

“Some fights are like that, which is why you need
help. I’ve been put into fights that I’d get my ass kicked in, and did get it
kicked in, without help from others. It’s safe to assume that there’s always
someone else out there stronger than you, and if you meet them in battle the
key to victory isn’t in beating them, but surviving to fight another day.
You’re alive, so you won that bout.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“I didn’t say it was fun, but you made it through.
That’s the point.”

“You my counselor now too?” Mina asked.

“Why, you need one?”

“Don’t know what I need. I thought this was over, now
it’s happening again.”

“If we get the
intel
we need,
we’ll make it the last time.”

“How do you know that? Everywhere I go, even under a
fake name, they can still get to me. I don’t even know who wants me or why.”

“You’re not in this alone. We’re going to pursue this
until it’s over.”

“Don’t you have something better to do? Not that I’m
ungrateful, but there has to be a lot of people out there that need help.”

“There’s always bad guys doing bad things, but not
that many try it in Star Force territory because they know we’ll come after
them and won’t stop until we find them. They’re on our radar now, and that’s
not somewhere they want to be,” Ginsi said, raising a hand before Mina could
reply. “Get ready. Someone is coming. Get by that wall and when I signal you, I
want you to stick your leg out across the doorway and trip them.”

“What!” Mina whispered.

“Just do it,” she said pointing to where she wanted
her as the Archon pulled the body out of view and into the cockpit. “8
seconds.”

Mina didn’t know what she was thinking but she did as
was told, watching Ginsi as she stood up and took position on the other side of
the door. She held up her hand with four fingers, then pulled one down, then
another giving Mina a countdown. When she balled her fist up Mina balanced on
her hands and kicked both legs out sideways, making herself a barricade and
feeling a foot slam into her right calf. Her legs got pushed over and she was
pinned down for a moment as
Ginsi’s
head fell beside
her as she tackled the guy.

“Nice job,” she said, rolling off the unconscious
Human.

“He’s out?”

“Yep,” Ginsi said, getting to her feet and kicking the
guy off Mina.

“What’d you hit him with?”

“A little Archon magic. He’ll be unconscious for at
least an hour.”

“No really, what did you do? It looked like you just
knocked him down.”

“No, you did. I just took him down the rest of the way
and got my hand on his head,” Ginsi said, waving her fingers in the air. “Like
I said, magic.”

“Telepathy or something?”

“Actually yes. I had to touch him to do it, but I was
able to put him to sleep.”

“So why’d you hit the other guy with your fist?”

“They’re trying to kidnap you, and that ticks me off.”

“So you hit him even though all you had to do was just
touch him?”

“Pretty much,” Ginsi said, extending her hand to Mina
and helping her to her feet.

“You beat up people for fun a lot?”

“I beat up people a lot, and it’s usually fun, but
it’s not for the purpose of fun so I’d have to say no.”

Mina laughed in spite of herself. She was still scared
and aware that she was in way over her head, both with these attackers and this
Archon, though Ginsi seemed friendly enough.

“Like I said, you’re young. I’ve had centuries to get
used to this sort of stuff. You not so much.”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Don’t need to. Your face is easy enough to read.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You wear your emotions on your sleeve.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“For an Archon, kind of. I can’t do it. I want to, but
I’ve put on so much emotional armor that I have trouble taking it off. You’re
totally out there, and even when you’re freaked out its refreshing to see that
kind of openness. I envy you…a bit.”

“
Wanna
trade? Or can I buy
that emotional armor somewhere?”

“You have to build it yourself, but I can let you
borrow mine for a few seconds if you’d like.”

“What?”

Ginsi held out her hand. “Let me show you.”

“You’re going to put me to sleep too?”

“No.”

“Then what?” Mina asked skeptically, looking at her
hand and recoiling a bit.

“Come on you
wuss
, just
trust me. I’m trying to help you.”

“By holding hands?”

“I can’t access your mind without physical contact and
I want to show you something.”

“Show me what?”

“What this looks like through my eyes. I think it will
help.”

Mina bit her lip, unsure what to do.

“Do I have to quote your own song lyrics?”

Mina blew out an exasperated breath in surrender, then
reached out and grabbed her hand. “I don’t think this is…” she said, suddenly
having her mind alter. She didn’t understand what was happening, but suddenly
everything looked different. The images she was seeing were all the same, the
sounds were the same, the smells were the same...but they all felt different,
as if in a different context. The dangerous situation she was in suddenly
seemed routine and kind of pathetic with the fear being stripped out of her.