Adrian’s muscles were clearly visible through the suit as it offered nothing in terms of layers, except in the private areas, groin, and chest for women. Adrian was close to stocky in shape, his muscles clearly defined without being bulky, his dark hair cropped short and his face was clean of facial hair, he didn’t really make an imposing figure. He was pleasant to look at. At least according to Clara’s preference, good looking but not overly so, he was of average height just a bit over a 180 cm tall. There was nothing really special about him. And yet there was something about him, it was not apparent when one looked at him at first, but over time Clara had started to see something just beneath the surface.
Down on the platform, four of the five moved away and left one of the Sentinels – Mario, on the platform with Adrian. There was no announcement of what was about to happen no pomp and fanfare, everyone knew what was coming next. Mario bowed to Adrian shallowly, a bow of someone superior to an inferior. It was an insult, especially in Warpath where almost half of their population was Nel and where they had adopted many of Nel gestures and forms of body language. Adrian didn’t respond verbally, only acknowledging Mario with a dip of his head, a gesture of someone who was an absolute superior.
Mario grimaced and his face visibly darkened, he brought his hands up in a ready position and started walking slowly towards Adrian, who was standing there with his hands behind his back, relaxed. Quickly Mario closed the distance and executed a few testing jabs. Adrian used foot work to step just barely out of range. Mario kept attacking faster, and Adrian kept moving out of range, towards the platform’s edge. Clara could clearly see the frustration on Mario’s face, he wanted to fight Adrian truly, and Adrian wasn’t letting him, he never engaged.
The faster Mario went the more impressive Adrian’s movements became. He made it look so effortless, he moved out of every attack’s range by a hairs breath, his movements smooth and flowing. It looked as if Adrian knew when and where Mario was going to attack before he did. And Mario was becoming increasingly more irritated. In a moment Clara understood and saw the skill that Mario possessed.
Even without being able to touch him, Mario was guiding Adrian towards the edge of the platform, which in turn narrowed the space that Adrian had to maneuver. Clara saw the moment, Mario moved a step back, making a half second pause in his attacks. Then she saw him leap forward with a direct shot to Adrian’s head. His attack will force Adrian to either block or move to the side, where he would be in range of Mario’s other hand.
Mario had put all his body’s weight and power in the strike, and in the split second it was flying towards Adrian’s head Clara knew that there wasn’t enough time for anyone to block that strike, Adrian would need to dodge into the Mario’s attack zone. And then something happened. As Mario’s attack almost reached its target, Adrian blurred. The next thing Clara could see was Mario hitting the floor, unconscious, Adrian standing in almost the same spot he was before the attack, only his body was twisted to the side and his elbow was up, as if he just attacked.
Everyone in the arena was deadly silent, the only sound came from the soft buzzing of the drones that recorded and transmitted to the rest of Warpath.
“Holy shit.” Clara heard Meifeng whisper. Clara simply couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Mario was a Sentinel, one of top Warpath’s warriors, skilled in hand to hand combat, Adrian shouldn’t have been able to do what he did. Especially when Clara knew that he almost never trained his hand to hand, and she and Meifeng had been with him for the past ten years. Clara saw Adrian motion to the medical team to gather and treat Mario, although it was unlikely that he incurred any kind of permanent injury. Everyone had medical nanites nowadays, which could quickly and effectively treat any injury, even a broken neck could be treated if it didn’t cause immediate death. Then Adrian turned to the rest of those who had accepted his challenge.
“So. Who’s next?”
“I can’t believe that just happened.” Meifeng said, as she and Clara walked to their joint quarters. The rest of the fights went about the same as the first one did. A challenger would step in, Adrian would dance around them until they fully committed to an attack and would then take them down with a single lightning fast strike. The only one that came close to even being called a fight was Isurani who managed to make Adrian actually use his hand to block an attack, but the end result was the same, with Isurani on the floor.
“Did you see how he was moving?” Meifeng started again when Clara didn’t comment to her previous remark. “He was like a ghost, there one moment and then gone the next.”
“Yeah…” Clara said finally, the whole experience had shaken her. She had always respected her Clan Leader, she knew that he was indisputably the best fleet commander that the Empire had. And she always believed that he was a competent fighter, a master for sure, but she believed that he wasn’t really on the same level as the Sentinels and others who had made combat their priority. What she saw today told her that Adrian was much more proficient in the combat arts than he let on. Far beyond what the markings on his hands indicated. “Did you manage to see how he took down Mario? All I saw was a blur.” Clara asked.
“No, but I looked at the recording on my imp, wait a sec you need to see this.” Meifeng said as her eyes lost focus for a moment. Clara then got a request on her own imp that appeared over her vision in her HUD. She accepted and was taken to the net, then a vid screen opened and a recording of the final few seconds of Adrian’s first match started playing. Clara watched as Mario’s fist drew closer to Adrian in slow motion, and then just at the moment that she knew it was too late for anyone to respond Adrian moved. In a burst of speed he moved his leg to the side and turned his body sideways so fast that even in slow motion it looked like he was moving almost as fast as normal. His elbow came up and Adrian used his body’s rotation to deliver a devastating strike to Mario’s temple, dropping him.
“How can he be that fast?” Clara asked.
“I don’t know, and I for one don’t care. At least now those idiots will shut up.” Meifeng said.
Clara didn’t add anything, and they walked the rest of the way in silence. It looked like there was more to their leader than was apparent.
Chapter Six
July; Year 30 – Unexplored space
The ship was falling apart under the onslaught of hundreds of greenish-white bundles of energy. They were eating at her ship, swallowing her ship’s hull. All around, her people were dying, their bodies disintegrating before her eyes. She screamed at them, to not give up, to keep fighting, but there was no one there. She was alone, sitting in her command chair. The holo in the room’s center showed that her fleet was gone, destroyed, only her and the enemy ship were left.
The enemy’s ship was smaller than hers, and yet it had destroyed her fleet, and was about to do the same to her ship. She watched as it charged its weapons knowing what was coming next, it felt as if she had seen this moment a thousand times before. The enemy ship fired its bolts of energy. A few seconds later the enemy fire reached her ship, and she knew that she was doomed. Alarms sounded, and the entire ship was shaking until it finally couldn’t take any more. Fire broke through the hatch leading into the control room, it spread towards her, threatening to swallow her whole. She closed her eyes and released a terrifying scream.